Andrew Dismore: Does my right hon. Friend agree that Hezbollah is Syria's proxy in Lebanon, and that it has been heavily armed by Syria and Iran, which thus bear considerable responsibility for the continuing tragedy in Lebanon and for the missiles that are raining down on Israeli cities? Does she agree that Iran has engineered the crisis to divert attention from its lack of response to the international community on its offer concerning civil nuclear power—no doubt the inference being that there is a nuclear weapons programme there? Does she agree that Hezbollah must be disarmed in accordance with UN resolution 1559, if a repetition of the present disastrous confrontation is to be avoided in future?

Mike Gapes: Ministers have been in the region and the US Secretary of State is now there. Can my right hon. Friend tell us what discussions there have been about the proposal for an international force in the south of Lebanon and whether that is being worked up in such a way that it will be introduced in the near future, rather than waiting several months until the conflict has subsided?

David Winnick: Leaving aside any absurd comparison with what the Nazis did in Warsaw—that hardly helps the situation at all—is my right hon. Friend aware that people in the United Kingdom in the main had no time for Hezbollah and such organisations, but find it almost impossible to understand how Israel can act as it is doing, causing so many deaths and serious injuries to people who are in no way involved in Hezbollah? Is it not time that the United Kingdom——and one would like the United States also——to make it as loud and clear as possible to the Israeli authorities that what they are doing cannot be justified under any circumstances? That is the view, I believe, of the vast majority of people in this country.

Margaret Beckett: I can only say again to the hon. Gentleman that if he looks through the statements that have been made, which, by the way, have always included a call for the return of the kidnapped Israeli soldiers as well as a cessation of violence and hostilities—the European Council called for an immediate cessation of hostilities and the G8 called for an immediate cessation of violence—he will see that everything is being done through diplomatic channels to try to create the conditions in which not only can there be a ceasefire, but that such a ceasefire can be maintained and can be durable. That, I fear, is probably the key to any kind of good outcome to the problems that we see at present.

Michael Jack: The Foreign Secretary might have heard a representative of the Syrian Government on today's "Today" programme indicating that, in their judgment, a lasting settlement to this human tragedy and crisis could come about only if the Syrian and Iranian Governments were involved. Could the Foreign Secretary give the House an assessment of that statement?

Margaret Beckett: I understand the right hon. Gentleman's point that Israel's legitimate demands are viewed against the prism of events taking place in Lebanon and, indeed, in Gaza, which there is a tendency for people not to mention, but where also we have grave concerns. The use of the words "buffer force" does not fall happily on people's ears in the area, but the right hon. Gentleman is certainly right to identify, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes), the Chair of the Select Committee did, that this will be time-consuming and not easy, and that the whole issue of the mandate of such a force, and its nature and construction, will be a matter of difficult negotiation. I expect that that will be very much a part of the discussions in Rome tomorrow, but that is why I believe that one of the strong efforts that we must make is to see what can be done now to ameliorate the situation, partly and perhaps primarily in the short term through humanitarian means, but also what we can do to help to improve matters, because it will undoubtedly take some time to answer the very pertinent questions that he has just put.

Margaret Beckett: The extent to which consensus, unity and momentum have been maintained among the permanent five has been striking and for a lot of people, including Iran, surprising. I share the right hon. Gentleman's view that it is vital both to try to maintain that unity and not to lose the momentum. Talk of sanctions is, perhaps, a little premature. If he casts his mind back to our detailed statement to Iran, which is now in the public domain, we deliberately set out a gradual progression of steps in order to make it easy to draw back if there were a response. He has rightly identified a possible key area, if sanctions have to be considered.

Margaret Beckett: Of course, I take my hon. Friend's observations very seriously, and I share her view that we must do as much as we can to make the resolution as strong as possible. An initial draft text is being circulated this week by a consortium of nations from across the globe, of which the UK is one. She is right to try to set a time line for about 2008 for some of those issues to be further considered. However, the process will take time, and it is important for the House to recognise that we are at the preliminary stage of the discussions. Nevertheless, I hope that the core principles can be agreed in this Parliament, but there will undoubtedly be tough negotiations about the detail.

Robert Key: Will the Secretary of State press ahead with all speed and diligence, confident in the knowledge that the lobbying is the work of not only pressure groups, but a vast number of ordinary people in this country, including, of course, the Christian Churches and the defence industry? The Defence Manufacturers Association and those involved in defence exports want to see a treaty, so they can differentiate between those who are following the law and those who are cheating, which destroys the lives of innocent people around the world.

Andy Reed: I welcome the statement that we are making some progress in this respect. There has been a bit of a lull over the past few years in trying to negotiate an international treaty. Will my right hon. Friend ensure that small arms, in particular, are central to everything that is done? As she knows, hundreds of thousands of people around the world are killed and maimed every year by the small arms, which are sometimes brokered beyond these shores, even under our existing law. Will she ensure that that loophole is closed as part of the international treaty?

Margaret Beckett: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have given a great deal of attention to that; indeed, we have restarted the process in Geneva. He is spot on in identifying this as a key area where action is needed. However, because such arms are so widespread, it is also an area of considerable sensitivity that needs a great deal of attention, support and work which we will indeed give it.

Ian McCartney: I assure the hon. Gentleman that not only is their plight not forgotten but as a country we are doing several things—not only in continuing with the sanctions, important as they are, but in assisting the ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe through hundreds of millions of pounds of aid to feed a country that was once southern Africa's food basket but is now unable to feed its own nation. We are giving millions to help the quarter of the population who area suffering from HIV/AIDS.
	We are working as a Government with civil society, trade unions and others who are bravely each day speaking up and speaking out about their fellow citizens in Zimbabwe, and we are making practical resources available to them. Our front-line staff are working in the country each day, in very difficult circumstances, to provide the necessary support for civil society. In addition, we are working with the front-line states, particularly those in southern Africa, to try to ensure that they do more to end this evil regime and return democracy to Zimbabwe.

Ian McCartney: If Mr. Mkapa can persuade Mr. Mugabe to undertake policy changes, we would support that. Mr. Mkapa has made no representations to us, nor has he sought our support. One thing that is certain is that working with the United Nations, we will continue to pursue the issue of the lack of real progress in Zimbabwe. I hope that my answer to the previous question gives my hon. Friend certainty about how seriously we take the situation in terms of working in diplomatic and practical terms to assist individuals and Zimbabwe itself. It is important to build bridges. Zimbabwe is in this condition because of the actions of the Zimbabwean regime towards its own people, infrastructure and society. The sooner we get international action to resolve that, the better.

Kim Howells: Like the rest of the international community, the British Government are deeply concerned about the situation in Lebanon. Intensive diplomatic efforts are underway to create a durable ceasefire. There are a number of initiatives that could help to bring an end to the suffering of the people of Lebanon and northern Israel, including—as my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have said—Hezbollah handing back the kidnapped Israeli soldiers immediately.

David Jones: While acknowledging the undoubted right of Israel to defend itself against terrorist attack, does the Minister agree that the damage inflicted by Israel on the civilian population of Lebanon is wholly disproportionate to the damage that it has sustained? Will he continue forcibly to voice the concerns of many of those who have hitherto regarded themselves as friends of Israel?

Kim Howells: The hon. Gentleman is reflecting a great deal of opinion across the world. Israel must be careful to understand, as I am sure that it does, that it is fighting not just a military but a political campaign. Opinion on the Arab streets, and on Muslim streets in general, is fed by those who want to portray in the worst possible light the effects of what has been a savage and harsh military campaign by Israel on a great part of Lebanon. However, I also saw for myself the way in which a ruthless militia, Hezbollah, locates its men, missile sites and supplies right in the middle of domestic housing. It does not care about the people who are dying there. It will use them in whatever way it can as propaganda for its campaign, and ultimately for the campaign of Iran and Syria. We must try to understand that the situation is not simple—there is not the wish to destroy a nation—but the results are horrendous. People are dying in Haifa as they are in Lebanon. We must find some way of constructing a durable peace.

David Davis: I think that the word should have been "commend". Perhaps the Home Secretary thinks that he is still at the Ministry of Defence.
	I thank the Home Secretary for advance sight of his statement. Much of what he announced is very sensible: it is also not new. The new asylum model, for example, was announced in February 2005. I also welcomed his intention to challenge the Chahal judgment last week. Indeed, can he now answer the question he twice failed to answer then, which was what he will do if the Chahal challenge fails? Most particularly, what will happen with the Prime Minister's comment, which the Home Secretary repeated today, that foreign prisoners will face automatic deportation? What will happen to that if the Chahal challenge fails?
	I have sat opposite three Home Secretaries, and each has talked tougher than the one before. However, they all discovered that tough talk was not enough—and they were the ones who created the system that the right hon. Gentleman called "not fit for purpose". So what does the rest of today's announcement consist of?
	The Home Secretary has announced yet another restructuring of the immigration and nationality directorate. There is nothing new in that—we have been here before as well. Over the past few years, I have sat here and listened time after time to talk of crackdowns, consultations, initiatives and action plans on matters ranging from bogus language schools to sham marriages, yet still we are faced with the current shambles.
	As I said, the Home Secretary said that the IND was not fit for purpose, but the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality said that it was not fit for the future. The truth is that the Government cannot cope with their own past. The serious problems faced by the IND will not be solved by yet another reshuffling of the deck. They will certainly not be solved by Ministers implicitly blaming civil servants. The IND has been overwhelmed by the sheer scale of immigration into this country.
	In 2004, net immigration into the UK from outside the EU totalled almost 270,000 people. In addition, in the 18 months since EU enlargement, some 600,000 people have arrived from the accession states, 580,000 more than the Government estimated at the time. Moreover, 660,000 foreign workers were issued with national insurance numbers. That is interesting, given what the Home Secretary said about actions to be taken against employers, most of whom take ownership of an NI number as proof of a person's right to be here. The problem is squarely the Government's.
	Only last week, the Home Secretary said that we might have 450,000 failed asylum seekers, but that was just months after the Government denied that there were as many as 250,000 here. All those core problems arose as a direct result of deliberate and explicit Government policy decisions.
	To deal with them, the Home Secretary said that he will double the IND's removals budget. That is welcome, although it would be overdue even if it were to happen today, yet it is not due to happen until 2010. When will the extra funding begin? What will the increase be this year, and what will it be next year?
	Spending on the IND has increased by more than 400 per cent. since 1998, and the number of staff has almost trebled, although all the transfers that have been going on makes that figure hard to work out. What has been the result? A massive growth in immigration, both legal and illegal—a growth so big that the social consequences are beginning to worry even Labour Back Benchers. The Government do not have any clue about how many illegal immigrants are here, hundreds of foreign prisoners have been released onto our streets, and all of the problems result from a policy failure so huge that it has overwhelmed the system. The Government's policy is wrong, not just their administration.
	However, the most oppressed victims of the Government's policy are some of the immigrants themselves. They include the lorry load of Chinese immigrants who tragically died in Folkestone en route into the UK, or the 23 cockle pickers who died on the sands of Morecambe Bay, or the illegal immigrants who live and work in often inhumane and dangerous conditions in our supposedly civilised country.
	Before the Morecambe Bay tragedy, this Government had successfully prosecuted only 10 employers of illegal immigrants in seven years, even though the relevant laws were put in place in 1996. It took Morecambe Bay and the resignation of the then Immigration Minister to end the Government's habit of turning a blind eye to the explosion of people trafficking and the massive trade in human misery that had blown up on their watch.
	I welcome any measures that will cut the amount of illegal working going on in this country, but we must understand that the powers will work only if they are used. They will be used only if the Government have the determination to deliver more than rhetoric on the issue, and are prepared to commit the necessary resources. If they do that, it will be a first.
	What other proposals have the Government made to deal with these problems? They are introducing embarkation controls, for which the Opposition have been calling for at least as long as I have been shadow Home Secretary. The Government eventually agreed to institute e-borders embarkation control in 2008, but we now understand that the process will not be concluded until 2014. That is too late. What is more, the system relies on a computer database and we all know how reliable Home Office computer databases are in terms of the speed with which they come into effect.
	Will the Home Secretary explain why we cannot simply reinstate a manual embarkation control system immediately? His proposal will not be in place to cope with the next EU enlargement and the large numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians who will come to this country, including, in the words of his own Minister, 45,000 "undesirables"—the Government's word, not mine. Can the Home Secretary give the House an undertaking that his Government will not repeat their disastrous mistake over the first enlargements, and allow vast numbers of Romanians and Bulgarians immediate access to this country?
	No immigration policy will work as long as we have "porous borders"—the words of the past Metropolitan Police Commissioner. That porous border is a contributor to illegal immigration, drugs trafficking, people trafficking, terrorism and a host of other crimes. That is why we have long called for border police, bringing together Customs, immigration, special branch and ports police, and giving them all wider powers.
	Along with the present and former heads of the Metropolitan police, the president of the Association of Chief Police Officers and others, we urged the Government to include those powers in the Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill. Why did not the Government do that? Instead, the Home Secretary offers us uniforms for immigration officers: no identified extra powers and no amalgamation of resources—just a new uniform. Frankly, this is a ludicrous piece of window dressing. It will not reinforce the immigration system. It will not seal our porous borders and it will certainly not shut down the hideous traffic in human beings that is still going on in the 10th year of the Government's tenure.
	This morning, I listened with interest to the latest Minister for immigration patter out the same old line, used by his many predecessors, that it was all the fault of the Opposition parties. No doubt the Home Secretary will repeat that line today, but let me tell him this: nine years, three big majorities, four Home Secretaries and 54 Acts of Parliament lead to one conclusion—this situation is this Government's responsibility and it is long past time they dealt with it.

John Reid: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for welcoming many of the proposals, which he left unspecified, while concentrating on those that he does not seem to welcome so much. May I rectify his view that we are blaming all this on the Opposition? Unusually, we are not. We have tried—[ Interruption.] Nor are we blaming it on our predecessors, who made a number of achievements. We are blaming some of it on the Opposition, as I shall point out later, but the main cause is the sheer extent of migration in the world. Every year, 200 million people, which is equivalent to the population of Brazil, migrate—not just move but migrate—and that has caused successive Secretaries of State huge problems. It overwhelmed the last Conservative Secretary of State, when it took 22 months to process an asylum case. The huge backlog to which the right hon. Member for Haltemprice and Howden (David Davis) referred was already building up when the Labour Government came in. We have always had to face the migration problem and changes in international circumstances.
	I shall refer to the some of the points that the right hon. Gentleman raised. He said that there was nothing new in the statement. Actually, the strategic objectives are new. The greater emphasis on border security and public protection is new. The rigorous risk-based approach to individuals and routes is new. The comprehensive identity management of foreign nationals is new. The extension of biometrics is new. The more visible and resourced uniformed border presence is new. The doubling of enforcement resource and activity is new. The simplification and strengthening of the law that we outlined, including the new powers for deportations and inter-agency arrangements, is new.
	The new accountability arrangements to complement agency status with a single regulator are new. There is a new independent migration advisory committee. The introduction of the new commissioning model is new—[ Interruption.] The reason the right hon. Gentleman can see nothing new is that when it is being outlined he is having a conversation with his colleagues. There is a new programme to clear the legacy of unconcluded cases. There is a new drive to break down barriers to removal and deportation. The comprehensive and fairer charging regime is new. I shall not go through the rest as time is limited.
	Incidentally, the IND has been mocked in respect of the move towards agency status, but only by separating it from the core Home Office as an arm's-length agency can we hope to restore faith in the system.
	"Removing the agency from the orbit of the Home Office will allow it to be reconstructed along fit-for-purpose lines and run more efficiently."
	Those are not my words; they are from the Conservative party's James report, on which it contested the last election.
	The right hon. Gentleman asks why we do not bring in a card-based system of embarkation controls. I remind him that the system was so inefficient even 14 years ago that the last Conservative Secretary of State got rid of card-based embarkation controls, which is why we have no way of counting out anyone who leaves the country. Incidentally, by 2010, 95 per cent. of routes will be covered by e-borders.
	The right hon. Gentleman asked when the funding increases for enforcement will start. The answer is next year—pretty much as fast as we can start increased funding. It will go up every year until 2010.
	On the Chahal judgment, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to ignore both my oral statement and the one I sent earlier, when I announced that there is a range of ways to proceed. He asked what we intended to do apart from challenging the judgment. I made it absolutely plain that one thing was to limit as far as possible, within the terms of the judgment, the ability to stop deportation of those the Government consider it necessary to deport or remove for reasons of national security. I used those words not 10 minutes before the right hon. Gentleman asked me to say something about the judgment.
	As I said, there is a range of ways to proceed. Another way might be to legislate that the courts must give particular weight to a memorandum of understanding in determining whether an individual faces risk when deported. I made it absolutely clear that we would be prepared to countenance that and to consult on it.
	Border enforcement is not just a matter of bringing in uniforms. We are increasing resources and looking at increasing powers. We are certainly increasing co-ordination. The staff suggested, and said that they would fully support, our giving them a measure of uniform and visible status. They felt that would reinforce their position.
	As for the Conservatives' suggestion for their so-called effective border force, they admitted during the general election campaign—to be precise, on the "Today" programme on 12 April 2005—that it meant covering only 35 of the 625 ports. Some force and some coverage, if that is all it would amount to.
	I commend—as I said, rather than command—the statement to the House, despite anything that the right hon. Gentleman said in a rather churlish acceptance of major steps forward on our IND improvement. I commend those steps, and I am sure they will render the IND far more effective than was ever the case under Conservative Governments.

Nicholas Clegg: I thank the Home Secretary for advance notice of the statement, although my gratitude is a little blunted by the awareness that, although I received it 30 minutes in advance, I think that some newspapers received significant components of it about three days in advance.
	Many people listening to the statement and some of the previous announcements will understandably ask why many of these measures, some of which are very welcome, were not taken earlier. Why, for instance, has it taken almost 10 years to agree to elementary exit checks, and—if my understanding of the right hon. Gentleman's statement is correct—why will there now be a further delay of eight years until 2014 before there is a proper counting-in-and-out system in place? Why has it taken almost a decade to agree to the principle of a properly identified border force, for which we on these Benches have been arguing for a long time? On that note, and in view of the Home Secretary's earlier remarks, will he confirm how many ports of entry will be covered by the new uniformed IND officials and whether they will be integrated more fully with Customs officials so that there is a fully integrated border force?
	Many observers will be understandably sceptical about the practical meaning of some of the pledges made today. What, for instance, does it really mean in practice to
	"deal with the legacy of unresolved cases in five years or less"?
	Like the Home Secretary himself no doubt, I have spoken to many asylum seekers who find it inexplicable that no action is taken to remove and deport them once their applications or appeals have been refused. They are left in a state of limbo, unable to stay, unable to work and unable to leave. If the Home Secretary wants to deliver a fairer but firmer asylum system, we need to make sure that dealing with asylum applications is not just a paper-shuffling exercise. It should be followed up by real action where that is clearly merited.
	Finally, I would like to add my own questions about the Home Secretary's comments on the Chahal case and the Dutch case that hopes to qualify the Chahal judgment. If the Dutch lose their case, the Government will not be able to ensure that foreign national prisoners automatically face deportation, as the right hon. Gentleman has said. But surely even if the Dutch win the case, the Government will still be unable to deport individuals to countries that are in a state of total chaos or where the individuals will face certain torture, mutilation or death. Will he explain whether he is seriously suggesting that all foreign national offenders will be deported without qualification? Or does he accept that there must and will be exceptions, regardless of what happens in the Dutch case, which he would do well to acknowledge today?

John Reid: To start with the hon. Gentleman's last point, although the Chahal judgment requires consideration of the threat to the safety of the individual to be deported, which I do not think anyone objects to—civilised societies do take that into account—the problem is that it prohibits taking into account the safety of everyone else in this country if the person remains here. It is that aspect of the judgment that makes it imbalanced. Although it is of course appropriate to consider the safety of anyone who has been deported from this country, it is equally important when considering, say, a suspected terrorist, to take into account the safety of the people of this country if the person stays here. In our view, that imbalance is at the heart of a gross misjudgment, which is why we are challenging it. I think that that answers his question.
	The hon. Gentleman made a comment, as he normally does, about having read elements of the statement in the press. I have to say that I have read all of his response in the press as well, so I am well prepared for that. He demanded to know why we lifted the embarkation controls and so on. There was support from the Liberal Democrats at the time. The reason that support existed, the reason that I have never criticised the lifting of the controls—although I felt compelled to point out to Conservative Members that they started this from 1994 onwards—and the reason that I accept that that was not an entirely unreasonable thing to do, relates to the nature of the card indexing system, which was grossly inefficient. We are now in a position where we have a technology that will enable us to take measures and that is what we will do over the period.
	Of course we hope that there will be an integrated and co-ordinated border force, but I have to say to the hon. Gentleman that, on two subjects, he is very wrong. He implies that we have done nothing up until now, but that is not the case. Under the previous three Labour Home Secretaries, we have doubled the number of removals of those not entitled to be here. We have reduced by 72 per cent. the number of asylum applicants, because we are no longer a magnet. We have reduced the time that it takes to deal with an asylum case from 22 months to eight weeks. We have now got a tipping point where we are deporting more false asylum claimants than arrive here. We have got border controls in northern France and Belgium. We have lorries being scanned. We have closed Sangatte. The channel tunnel is fenced off. Biometric finger scanning for visa applicants and airline liaison has been brought in. There are many other measures. The hon. Gentleman ought to commend us on being far more self-critical and constructive in renewing and building on the improvements that we have already made than either of the Opposition parties appear capable of being.

Douglas Hogg: The right hon. Gentleman has dealt with the criminal liability that will be attached to employers who employ illegal immigrants. He is wholly right to say that the criminal sanctions should apply only to employers who act knowingly—that is, it should not be an absent offence. May I suggest that the same rules be applied to the public sector as to the private sector, so that Ministers and permanent secretaries will be exposed to the same liabilities as members of a private-sector board?

John Reid: On the right hon. Gentleman's first point, I believe that we have an accurate number of case files at between 400,000 and 450,000. Many of those will be duplicates and therefore those figures do not represent people. The only estimate we have of the number of people came from the National Audit Office last year—the only estimate that is in the public domain from any independent organisation. That is 283,000, plus dependants, plus those who were in the UK before 1994. I do not make estimates because, like the last Conservative Home Secretary, I am not prepared to put before the House estimates on whose accuracy I cannot rely. However, the figure that I mentioned from the NAO is in the public domain. I have put in the public domain the number of case files that we have, but some of them may be duplicates and many may be errors. We will deal with that over the next few years. With regard to people leaving the country, we do not intend to try and stop anyone leaving, but we intend to reintroduce the means of counting them as they leave the country. Finally, I look back with great affection to the days when the right hon. Gentleman and I could stroll in the sunshine through Ballymena. I can tell him that the delights there are surpassed only by the delights of the Home Office.

Keith Vaz: In respect of the new shadow agency that the Home Secretary is creating, will he undertake to consult with Parliament if it is to have a regional structure? Will he also undertake to ensure that should the regulator produce a report that is critical of the agency or of immigration policy, the Government will accept it?

John Reid: I can certainly give my right hon. Friend a guarantee on the first point. I will ask my hon. Friend the Minister for Immigration, Citizenship and Nationality to consult with MPs and others about regional cities. I am not sure that I entirely understood the second point that my right hon. Friend was making. I may have misheard it. I envisage the migration advisory committee as an advisory body particularly on the skills that are necessary for the economy—there is a skills advisory body at present. We will consult on regulation, and perhaps during that consultation he can make the points that he just made.

John Reid: Yes, I think so, although our shortcomings sometimes assist such people to make money, sometimes under false pretences. The hon. Gentleman speaks with authority on these matters, as he is probably—depending on one's point of view—the biggest correspondent or the biggest burden on the immigration and nationality directorate, but he is right to talk about the basics—the losing of files and so on. There is no doubt about that. In the document we made a very simple point, at which people may sneer: that we want to create excellence in the basics—that is, in the maintenance of files, systems, information and so on—because that is what gives rise to huge frustration, additional work, with MPs and others writing after months and years of delays, and then grounds for remaining in the country, even when the initial entry was illegitimate, because people have been here so long that to ask them to move would be to interrupt unduly the family life that had been established. The hon. Gentleman is right on all these points.

Jack Straw: Further to that point of order, Mr. Speaker. My right hon. Friend the Chief Whip and I have made every effort to reduce the number of written ministerial statements tabled on the last day of the Session. In the past, about 60 written ministerial statements were tabled on the last day of the Session, compared with 14 today. The hon. Gentleman cannot complain about the large number of written ministerial statements that were tabled earlier, because we have done what we said that we would do to ensure that hon. Members are not ambushed on the last day. On this occasion, it should be bouquets rather than brickbats from the hon. Gentleman.

Mr. Speaker: The House was very noisy at that Deputy Prime Minister's questions—I remember the hon. Gentleman being in the Chamber. It is not helpful to the proceedings of this House when allegations go from one side of the House to the other. If any hon. Member has any complaint about the behaviour of another hon. Member, there is a procedure, which I will not go into at the moment—I am not encouraging anyone to use the procedure. If the word "liar" was shouted, it would have been helpful if there were less noise in the Chamber, because those hon. Members who know me well know that I would not have tolerated such language and would have called for an immediate withdrawal. However, I cannot do that if there is so much noise that I cannot hear what has been said. I would appreciate it if hon. Members listened rather than throwing in their tuppence-worth and shouting across the Chamber.

Jack Straw: On behalf of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the leader of the Liberal Democrats and all the other leaders of political parties here represented, I beg to move,
	That Mr. Speaker be requested to convey to Sir Roger Sands KCB, on his retirement from the office of Clerk of the House, the House's gratitude for his long and distinguished career, for his wise contribution to the development of the procedures of the House, for his leadership and professionalism in the discharge of his duties as chief executive of the House, and for the courteous and helpful advice always given to individual honourable Members.
	I have no doubt that the rest of the House will wish to join party leaders and myself in supporting this motion to pay tribute to Sir Roger Sands, who on 30 September will retire as Clerk of the House. That date will mark 41 years of service, during which time he has not only watched the House change but played a vital role in shaping those changes and in ensuring its continued relevance and vitality. Over the course of his career, which began in the early days of Harold Wilson's Government in 1965, Sir Roger has occupied almost all of the senior positions in the Clerk's Department, including Clerk of the Overseas Office, Principal Clerk of Select Committees and Registrar of Members' Interests, Clerk of Public Bills, Clerk of Legislation and Clerk Assistant, before becoming Clerk of the House in January 2003.
	Yet according to more than one of his colleagues, despite playing such a number of prominent roles he has left few personal embarrassing personal anecdotes behind him; evidently he was too shrewd and reliable for that. However, he did manage to get described in one departmental missive as being
	"like a lethal hunter-killer submarine"—
	a clear warning that his manner belied a forensic mind and a tenacious ability to stick to an argument. As I am sure that all colleagues who have encountered Sir Roger will readily acknowledge, he has been unfailingly courteous in all his dealings. As one of his colleagues in the Clerk's Department remarked, "His capacity to soak up problems without over-reacting to them never ceased to amaze. The worst reaction I ever saw was when he professed, after being badly let down, to be 'Very cross'."
	Let me turn to the aspect of the motion that refers to the wise contribution that Sir Roger has made in developing the procedures of the House, and particularly in discharging his duties as Chief Executive. The important experience that he gained during the 1980s as Secretary of the House of Commons Commission meant that he developed acute antennae for Members' concerns. He was therefore well placed, when becoming Chief Executive as well as Clerk of the House, to guide the Board of Management through a period of significant change. As a result, he leaves the House in a much better position to address the further challenges that it continues to face.
	It should be emphasised, however, that long before he got the senior job, Sir Roger had already made a difference to the administration of the House. In the mid-1990s he succeeded in negotiating new contracts for the House's printing and publishing needs. They managed to provide considerable cost savings without sacrificing quality.
	More generally, Sir Roger has played a critical role in helping the House to remain at the centre of public and political life. As he noted in his letter of retirement:
	"The House of Commons is a much-criticised institution; and its own Members are often as critical an anyone. But whatever its perceived failings, the House remains at the centre of political and public life and is the envy of most other countries in the world."
	Those who dispute that and dismiss Parliament as an irrelevance display their ignorance of this place. It is all too easy to dismiss this magnificent gothic structure on the bank of the Thames and mistake Parliament for a monument, fixed and unchanged for countless years.
	Parliament is not a monument. It has the most extraordinary history but it is a living institution, and as such, must constantly be refreshed and renewed. That is what Sir Roger Sands has helped to achieve. However, he would be the first to acknowledge—as indeed he has—the critical support that he received from all the staff of the House in doing his duties as Clerk. In paying tribute to Sir Roger, we pay tribute to all the staff in post and the many others who have left in recent years from all departments and all levels in the House, often after many years' service. They may rarely be seen or noticed by those outside these buildings, but as hon. Members of all parties know, the House of Commons and Parliament could not function without the superb officials who serve it and the broad spectrum of talent that they possess.
	As the England football team demonstrated rather vividly earlier this month, a talented group of individuals does not alone guarantee an effective team. Leadership is all important. Roger Sands provided that and we are deeply grateful to him for doing so. We will miss him greatly. We thank him warmly and wish him and his wife, Jennifer, well for the future.

David Hanson: I beg to move, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	In all parts of the House, there has long been awareness of some of the real concerns about the way in which Northern Ireland legislation is dealt with through the Order-in-Council procedure. We have had many debates about such matters with Members on both sides of the House in the past 15 months during which I have had the privilege of holding this office. We have had discussions in Committee, which have sometimes spilled over into discussions on the Floor of the House. The Government have been considering how to improve the procedure, about which my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State wrote to the official Opposition spokesman and other parties last year. As it happens, the other place has helpfully tabled an amendment to deal with those matters, on which we are focusing today.
	My noble Friend Lord Rooker and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State have considered the procedures in the House, and we have concluded that we need to examine how the Order-in-Council procedure is to be changed. Following last week's Lords amendments, the Government have given an undertaking that, if we are unable to restore devolution by 24 November, we will quickly introduce measures to make direct rule more accountable. Our intention is for the restoration of the devolved Assembly by 24 November. Many of the matters dealt with under the Order-in-Council procedure are properly dealt with by the Assembly, should it be reconstituted. In the event of the Assembly not being reconstituted—of course, I hope that it will be—we will consider how to make those measures more accountable, agreed through the usual channels, if I may say so, with a stage of parliamentary consideration at which Northern Ireland Orders in Council can be amended. We will also ensure that, whenever possible, we legislate for Northern Ireland through Bills.

David Hanson: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his contributions on these issues. Obviously, the Government's first priority is to get the Assembly up and running, with the co-operation of colleagues on both sides of the House, by 24 November. In the unhappy event that the Assembly is not reconstituted, we will take an early opportunity to examine how to make the Order-in-Council procedure more appropriate, as has been discussed in another place and here. Although that will be considered as a matter of urgency, I hope that the hon. Gentleman will understand that the first priority of officials and Ministers is to get the Assembly back up and running.

David Hanson: The right hon. Gentleman's support is always welcome, and I am grateful for the support that he has given to our objectives today. Let me say to the House, and to the right hon. Gentleman in particular, that the Government's prime objective is to get the Assembly up and running again. The matters dealt with by Order in Council are dealt with in that way because the Assembly is not sitting. I understand that Government have responsibilities in regard to the restoration of the Assembly, but I say to the right hon. Gentleman with due respect that responsibilities also lie with all the political parties that are elected in Northern Ireland to ensure that the Assembly is reconstituted.
	I ask the House to disagree with the amendment because in my opinion—and I hope that this is acceptable to Opposition Members—what it proposes is unnecessary in view of the Government's undertaking to consider further parliamentary scrutiny of the Orders in Council. I hope that Members will not oppose the motion, but if they do, I hope that they will understand where the Government are coming from.

Lembit �pik: The Minister and the House know how strongly I have felt about this matter over the past two years. Indeed, on some occasions during Statutory Instrument Committees I have been almost angry with the Government for failing to make the change. The Minister knows, but I warn him again, that he would not like me when I am angry. Nevertheless, I am relieved to know that he and the Government have seen the sense of a change for which the Liberal Democrats have called for more than two years.
	I recall outrageous occasions on which the will of Northern Ireland politicians, speaking in unison, has been ignored in preference to the dogma of the Government. For example, the Government lost a vote on tuition fees in a Grand Committee in which they had a majority because Northern Ireland Members and others felt so strongly that that was the wrong move for Northern Ireland. Of course, we had no opportunity to amend the legislation, and Northern Ireland had imposed on it a piece of legislation developed entirely by the Government, with scant regard for the wishes of the people there.
	In that context, I thank the Minister for placing on record the Government's intention to address the way in which we legislate for Northern Ireland in Westminster. That has been a long time coming. The Liberal Democrats, together with Conservative and indeed Northern Ireland Members, have expressed concerns on many occasions. We are grateful that the Government have now responded and are prepared to act.
	We also appreciate the Minister's important observation that this is nothing to do with planning for failure. We are firmly committed to devolution, and we hope that the continuing priority of the Government and, indeed, politicians speaking for Northern Ireland constituencies is the re-establishment of the devolved Assembly. However, if the devolved Assembly is not restored by that dateand, as I have said, we sincerely hope that it iswe must move quickly to ensure that whatever processes are implemented in this place in the interests of legislation for the Province are implemented speedily.
	I asked the Minister to confirm that the Government's timetable for change would be days or weeks rather than months or years, but I noticed that he declined to be that specific. I will be specific. In my judgment, the Government need to move on that change by the end of December 2006, because the situation has gone on long enough. Even December 2006 will provide the Government with four or five weeks to initiate a dialogue and produce plans to change the methodology for Northern Ireland legislation, thereby enabling it to be amended.
	We also very much welcome the intention to legislate for Northern Ireland by means of primary legislation, wherever possible, but will the Minister clarify precisely what that means? Will we see more Bills like this one, where a number of measures that are not related to each other are all scrutinised at once, or will it mean that Northern Ireland measures will be included in legislation for England and Wales that is proceeding on the same subject areas at the same time? Given that we have debated anonymous registration in the Bill, it would have been much better if Northern Ireland provisions were included by the latter means. I simply cannot understand why we separate Northern Ireland legislation from legislation intended for England and Wales where it is perfectly obvious that the same rules apply.
	However, we appreciate that that would require discussions between various Departments, so I rhetorically ask the Minister whether such a feat would be possible. I sincerely hope [Interruption.] I hear an equivocal response from the Minister so I will take the positive part of it. Silo thinking has to some extent made it difficult for the Northern Ireland Office to work with other Departments, where doing so would offer economies of scale and might lead to more consistent legislation. Will the Minister assure the House that there will be better co-operation and co-ordination between the various Northern Ireland departments and Departments in Whitehall?
	Finally, this is an occasion when the Government are asking us to trust them without their having made specific legislative proposals or any specific modifications that could, through amendment, initiate the process that we are discussing in the Bill. I do not always trust the Government, but on this occasion I do, and I sincerely believe that the Minister is sincere and that his word is good. For that reason [Interruption.]

Kate Hoey: I would have supported the Lords amendments today, but given that the Minister has come forward with what we all accept is a necessary step forward for securing democracy in Northern Ireland, I am happy to go along with it. I strongly urge that the work is done over the summer, so that we are ready to put these measures through as soon as the House returns after the recess.
	I, too, hope that the Assembly will be back by 24 November. In the last few months, we have seen the Order-in-Council procedure used in a totally undemocratic way. Quite frankly, the Government are not seeking votes in Northern Ireland and they do not care about the people of Northern Ireland in the same sense that they care about the people of London, for example. If every single London Member said that they did not want something to happen, it would not happen. That was the case quite recently when London MPs were very angry about health issues and primary care trusts, and proposals were changed. On many Northern Ireland issues, however, all the parties from the nationalists to the Unionists support certain measures, but the Government have still railroaded their own policies through by the ridiculous Order-in-Council procedure.
	Whatever the rights and wrongs of selection in Northern IrelandI happen to think that the education system in Northern Ireland is a good system, even though, like every education system, it can be made betterforcing through a measure in two and a half hours in a Committee is not good enough. One Labour Member was taken off the Committee because he had said that he would vote against the Government. I, of course, would not even be considered for that Committee. The Government seem to think that it is all right to put me on European Standing Committees or Statutory Instrument Committees, but not on a Northern Ireland Committee.
	Disgracefully, that education measure was forced through. That was using education as a form of blackmail against the Northern Ireland people and Northern Ireland politicians, when we all know that the vast majority of people there, although they may have wanted to change how the 11-plus worked, did not want to stop academic selection. Minister after Minister stood up and said, Oh, we are not getting rid of grammar schools; we are just getting rid of academic selection. Come on, really!
	I am pleased that we may be beginning to treat Northern Ireland people with the same respect and to accord them the same rights as we give to people in Scotland, Wales and the rest of the UK. If my hon. Friends who represent constituencies in England and their constituents were treated in the way that Northern Ireland MembersI include my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Dr. McDonnell) who is in his place behind meand their constituents are treated, they would find it disgraceful.
	If the new Assembly does not get up and running, I have real doubts about what might happen under some new procedure, because Sinn Fein has wanted to get rid of grammar schools since day one. If Sinn Fein can do anything to stop that Assembly from coming back on 24 November, just in order to get rid of academic selection, that is what it will do. If Sinn Fein manages to stop the Assembly until just after 24 November, I hope that this House will find some way forward. I also hope that the Liberal Democrats would see how Sinn Fein had exploited the issue.
	To go back to the nub of the matter, we must find a way of ensuring that the democratically elected MPs from Northern Ireland can take the necessary decisions. Where are they in all this? Why are they not accorded much more power? They have been elected and taken their seats in this place. They should be listened to much more, but because the Government do not seek a single vote in Northern Ireland, they refuse to organise there and refuse to give those people of the UK the opportunity to vote Labour or join the Labour party in any meaningful sense. It is so frustrating.
	The Minister may not think so, but I have a lot of time for him and I believe that he has tried hard in very difficult circumstances [Interruption.] I am probably ruining his remaining career in saying that. Seriously, though, he has tried hard and it can be extremely difficult to be the front-person when the Secretary of State has not been there, yet is pulling the strings. I am pleased that we are moving forward, but it must happen soon over the summer. If the Assembly does not return, we must ensure that the legislation goes through as quickly as possible. Let us do all that we canthe Government must do all that they canover the summer to help the democratically elected parties in Northern Ireland to form an Assembly so that the people of Northern Ireland can have true democracy.

Peter Robinson: It is always a great pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey)and never more so than today. I completely endorse her comments, particularly those tangentially related to the education order, but I also welcome the general principles that she has enunciated.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley) from the early 1970s and myself from the later '70s have consistently championed the cause of ending the Order-in-Council procedure. As Northern Ireland elected representatives, we were capable of speaking on Second Readings of legislation relating entirely to England and Wales. We could table amendments and speak to them in Committeeat great length, if we uncharacteristically wanted to do soand we could speak on Report and Third Reading. However, we could not do the same in respect of legislation that applied to our own part of the United Kingdom. It was irrational that we should have a greater say in the affairs of England and Wales than in those of the constituents who had sent us here from Northern Ireland. It was an absurdityone that, regrettably, the Conservative Government did not attempt to rectify at the time; nor have the Labour Government done so, except that it appears that they have accepted that there is a case to be answered.
	Perhaps I am just a sceptic, but I rather suspect that the Government making this concession had something to do with the strength of opinion of the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Cross Benchers in the House of Lords. The Government recognised that it might be in the interests of the Bill to make this concession, rather than the Minister having a Damascus road experience on the issue. However it may have come about, we are glad that the Government are moving in that direction, although, like the shadow Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, we would have preferred it to be done now.
	Important legislation will be dealt with between now and whenever the Government rectify the situation, and particularly because issues such as water charging will come before the House. Those issues are of immense importance to our constituents and, unfortunately, they will be dealt with under the procedure, whereby only a few of our Members may get the opportunity on some delegated legislation Committee upstairs to speak on the issue for a few minutes. That is unsatisfactory when dealing with such important issues.
	The Minister has not spoken about the process by which he would improve the Order-in-Council procedure. The Lords indicated that it wanted to make Orders in Council amendable and to introduce a procedure by which the Government could withdraw the order to consider the decision of the House and return with an amended order if necessary, or if the Lords did not amend it, the proposal would be adopted by the House. So the Lords made very specific proposals in its amendment, but the Minister has not said whether he would allow Orders in Council to be amended in such circumstances as may come about. The Government still has not told us about that.
	All we know is that they would attempt to get greater democracy into the system. At some later stage, they could decide that we would have two hours instead of an hour and a half to debate an order, or three hours upstairs instead of two and a half, and they might trumpet that as being a great blow for democracy. The Minister needs to give us a clear indication of the nature and scope of his intention in relation to any change to make the process more democratic.

Peter Robinson: Yes, and in fact the Government already accept the principle that they should do so in this very Bill. The Bill is centrally designed by the Government to introduce proposals for the devolution of criminal justice and policing matters, which can only be devolved to an Assembly that does not exist presently, so the Government recognise the need to look ahead on these matters. They recognise that preparatory work needs to be done and that legislation needs to be passed.
	If it is right, even before the change in legislation that will be necessary for an Assembly to exist in Northern Ireland, that the Minister should be looking ahead to policing and justice powers being devolved, I am sure that the same Minister would be very content to open up discussions on those matters in the circumstance that many of us do not wantdevolution not occurring in Northern Ireland. Although devolution in Northern Ireland might be the Minister's priority, he should not close his eyes to the possibility that it might not happen. We want it to happen and the Minister knows the circumstances in which it can happen.
	I am sure that the Minister was as disappointed as we were when he read the report of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee that indicated the ongoing criminality that still exists not just with ordinary paramilitaries from the loyalist side and from the dissidents, but from those who, according to the Minister, are suitable to be in government. Of course, that information will militate against our getting devolution up and running. I hope that the Minister will look at the alternative.
	There are always exceptions to the rule, but as a general rule I have always found in the House that the more consideration given to a Bill and the more scrutiny of legislation that goes on, the better the end product. If that is generally accepted as a rule, the Minister must introduce legislation to change the Order-in-Council procedure, so that we might get better legislation in Northern Ireland. I welcome the move that the Minister has made.

Peter Robinson: Over the 27 or 28 years that I have been a Member, I have seen the House pass some legislation in an hour-and-a-half procedure, sometimes at 1, 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, with barely any Members present, except for Northern Ireland Members. That is no way to deal with legislation. Some of these orders, even though they have might have two different elements, can be very important to the lives of people in Northern Ireland. Our business should not be treated in that way and I trust that the Minister's undertaking, which I hope will be strengthened in his response, will soon be put in place if devolution does not occur in November.

Kate Hoey: I appreciate what the Minister says about the procedure not being satisfactory. Will he then explain why you used Order-in-Council procedures to push through an education order when the same Labour Members were being urged to go through the Lobby to keep selection in England three weeks earlier? You used the Order-in-Council procedure to put that education order through in two and a half hours.

David Hanson: The Government have taken this decision on policy issues relating to this matter, and a key point for my hon. Friend and all hon. Members is that although the Order-in-Council procedure was unsatisfactory, there was a debate and a vote on the education order upstairs in Committee. The Opposition prayed against the education order in Committee. There was a vote, of all Members who wished to participate in that vote, on the Floor of the House, and the Government were supported and the proposals were agreed to. So although the Order-in-Council procedure is unsatisfactory, there was even in that controversial case an ability for all Members, if they so wished, to vote on that matter in the House today.
	We have had a degree of consensus on the matters under discussion. It is not for me to break that consensus, but I wish simply to place on the record that although I welcome the contribution of the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) who speaks for the Official Opposition, after 10 years of a Labour Government we have brought forward proposals to amend the Order in Council, but in the previous 20 years of Conservative Governmentfrom 1972, and up until todayno changes were made. As I do not wish to break the consensus because that would add a sour note to the proceedings, I simply say to the hon. Gentleman that I thank him for his support for the measures and I commend the Government proposal to the House.
	 Lords amendment disagreed to.

Nigel Dodds: The Minister is trying to put a gloss on what is clearly a discriminatory provision, against Unionist parties and Unionist people in Northern Ireland in particular. How can the Minister stand up and justify a special provision that allows Irish citizens and organisations to donate to parties in Northern Ireland, when he knows full well that those donations will be completely one-sided and will have no benefit whatever for Unionist parties or the Unionist population? If the Good Friday agreement or the Belfast agreement is supposed to be about equality, this clearly flies in the face of equality.

John Bercow: I am extremely grateful to the Minister for giving way. Can I simply put it to him that, in this context, if we were to speculate upon percentages and try to arrive at a view as to the proportion of any donations that would go to Unionist parties, there would be several noughts after the decimal point before a positive figure were reached?

David Hanson: I am grateful for the hon. Gentleman's intervention, but it is not for me to determine the what, who, where and when of any donations to any parties from citizens of the Irish Republic or businesses that operate in the Irish Republic. It is for me to be consistent with the Good Friday agreement, which recognises that there is a significant step forward in these measures and that the potential for donations from citizens of the Republic of Ireland to political parties to the north is a part of that.
	I know that concerns exist both in this House and in another place about how the permissible donors clauses would operate in practicein particular, in relation to the conditions that Irish citizens and bodies who can donate in Ireland would have to meet in order to be able to donate to Northern Ireland parties, and how those donations would be checked and verified in the future by the Electoral Commission. I, and my noble Friend Lord Rooker in dealing with this in another place, have recognised those concerns and have sought to address them when they have been raised, both here and in another place. As I have explained to the House on a number of occasions, the detail of how the permissible donors clauses would work will be set out in UK secondary legislation, following consultation with the Electoral Commissionit is important that commission has a key role in this matter. This detail, which would include the criteria on how we check individual Irish donors and Republic of Ireland companies that wish to donate to parties in the north, will then be specified by an order that would have to be laid before and approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament. The Lords and Members of this House would therefore have an opportunity fully and publicly to debate these issues further at the time that an order is made.
	Therefore, for a range of reasons I oppose Lords Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 as they are not compatible with the Good Friday agreement to preclude Irish citizens and bodies from making political donations to Northern Ireland political parties or regulated donees.
	I am conscious that this debate finishes at 3.25 pm, and I know that many Members wish to participate, but can I make one final point? Today is a day for retirements, and the Clerk of the House has recently retired. Today is also the final day that a Northern Ireland Minister has received advice from Jonathan Margetts. He is a member of the Northern Ireland Office staff, and he has been acting as head of parliamentary legislation and has been involved in that in the NIO since 1972, after working for the Home Office for nine years previously. If this is my last opportunity to speak in this debate, I wish him and his family every success in his retirement, and I thank him for his long service to 15 Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland during that time.

Lembit �pik: The Minister will see how strongly Liberal Democrats feel about this matter by the increasing number of Members on our Benches to listen to this debate.  [Interruption.] Yes, and perhaps to listen to me as well. Those Members include my hon. Friends the Members for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross), for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett), for Cambridge (David Howarth), for Colchester (Bob Russell)and even my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) has come into the Chamber to lend his support to my words this afternoon.
	Throughout our discussions on the Bill in this House and another place, we have been at pains to stress to the Government that we do not object in principle to the proposed extension, but we are concerned about how it will work in practice. We have raised some specific anddare I say it?reasonable questions about the proposed scheme, but what has been frustrating is that Ministers, particularly in another place, have been unable to give any coherent responses. We have either been greeted with silence or with answers so vague that they simply raise suspicions that we were being sold a pup.
	I am glad to see that the Minister is effectively trying to fill in the blanks and to provide some clarity in the fog of confusion that hung over these clauses until now. We understand that the additional categories of donors would have to meet prescribed conditions, which would be set out in an order once consultation has taken place with the Electoral Commission. However, even now, we have not really been given an indication of what such conditions might be. It is not enough to expect Parliament to agree to such a huge change in the arrangements for donations to political parties, given that we know so few details about how those arrangements are to work.

Lembit �pik: I am pleased in two ways with that response. First, the Minister suggests that this could be the first of the amendable Orders in Council. That is important, because it gives us something of a time frame for the matters that we have just discussed. Secondly, I am encouraged to hear that he would be willing to accept formal representations on these matters. Let me underline the importance of the Minister's responsewe now begin to get a time frame for when the Government must put forward the amendability proposals, which is encouraging.
	It is important to be assured that the Government are thinking about these conditions. The Minister gave us two examples, which is helpful. We need a coherent strategy that ensures that the loopholes are dealt with. It would also be useful to know over time what avenues of communication will be set up between political parties in the north of Ireland, the Electoral Commission and the agencies in the south of Ireland, so that sufficient checks can be made.
	Our donation system is at least sometimes fairly open and transparent, but this is new territory for the United Kingdom, in the sense of working across a national boundary. It would be unreasonable to expect the Northern Ireland Office to operate solely as a single agency to set these precedents. I hope that silo thinking will not prevent a strategic approach being taken.
	In essence, we simply want to be sure that the Minister will expect a political party in Northern Ireland to take specific steps in order to satisfy itself that a donation was from someone who is genuinely an Irish citizen. On the basis that the Minister has given some useful examples by way of interventions, and an assurance that this legislation, if it comes forward through an Order in Council, will be amendable, we are happy to support it today.

Alasdair McDonnell: I rise to oppose the Lords amendments, which would narrow the list of political donors, restrict funding and strangle parties such as my own. In the light of an earlier question, it is important to point out that we are not talking only about parties such as the Social, Democratic and Labour party. Unionist parties derive a small but nevertheless significant amount of money from across the border with the Irish Republic.
	A law that outlaws the raising of funds for Northern Ireland parties on the island of Ireland as a whole is a bad, ineffective and unworkable law. Moreover, it runs against the grain of relationships within these islands between Britain and the Irish Republic that have improved so much in the past 25 or 30 years. It not only makes no sense for legitimate parties in Northern Ireland to be banned from raising legitimate funds anywhere else in the island of Ireland; it also undermines democracy and the existing support for it.
	My party survives financially because of good people south of the border. We derive a lot of our funding from within the north, which we require in order to help out. I am glad to note from recent records that our party is now in the black for the first time in a long time, thanks, in part, to donations. I regret that other parties are in some difficulty, but, if they sought a little help from across the border in the Irish Republic, they could perhaps bring themselves into the black.
	The issue is not only large-scale fundraising. The ridiculous nature of this law is particularly apparent along the border. Our small branches and associations in places such as in Derry hold an event of some sort, yet Muff is 2 or 3 miles down the road. Ballyshannon is 2 or 3 miles down the road from Belleek in Fermanagh. It is just not humanly possible to implement this law. It is like introducing a law that says that Labour associations on the English border with Scotland are not allowed to make such requests of people across the border. The same point applies to Conservative or Liberal Democrat associations. That is the significance of this measure at local level.  [Interruption.] Does someone wish to intervene?  [Interruption.] There is so much muttering going on that I would rather give way.

Question put, That this House disagrees with the Lords in the said amendment.
	 The House divided: Ayes 260, Noes 16.

Keith Vaz: I am delighted to participate in this debate, although I am sure that it will not be as exciting as the previous debate and the comments from both sides of the House. I want to raise two local issues and one international issue relating to Lebanon.
	On the local front, I am concerned about the latest plans of the Leicestershire health trust for the downgrading of the pathway project. Two years ago, the University of Leicestershire health trust decided to rebuild our three hospitals in Leicesterthe Leicester general hospital, the Leicester royal infirmary and Glenfield hospital. They were to be completely rebuilt at a cost of about 761 million. A few weeks ago, we were told in Leicester that because of the cuts that had been decided on, the project would be downsized to cost of approximately 500 million. The result is that the Leicester general hospital, which is in my constituency, will not be rebuilt.
	Obviously, we are delighted that one of the Leicester MPs is my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health. Although she cannot intervene on local matters, because she is in charge of our hospitals all over the country, the fact that she is a Leicester MP makes her more aware of the issues that concern people in the city.
	My plea is that the local health authority understand that downsizing the project, and thereby not rebuilding Leicester general hospital, will cause enormous difficulties in the future. Instead of a rebuild, we have been promised a refurbishment and the use of modular buildings. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, South (Sir Peter Soulsby) and I went to look at a modular building. Such buildings have a life span of only 25 years, and although they would be newer than other parts of the hospital, they would have to be dismantled at the end of that period and a new extension constructed.
	In a 21st-century health service, it is vital that we have the buildings to support its services. I agree with the fundamental principle that services matter and it is important that local people have access to excellent health care, but if they do not have buildings in which to provide it, they will suffer in the long run.
	The second issue concerns my constituent, Malde Modwadia, who many years ago was falsely accused and convicted of theft. The conviction was quashed and under section 133(4) of the Criminal Justice Act he applied for an assessment in respect of loss of income and the compensation due to him for false arrest and conviction. I have had much correspondence with at least five Home Office Ministers requesting a meeting to discuss the principle of the case.
	Clearly, the situation affects Dr. Modwadia, his career, his reputation and the livelihood of his family, and it is important that others in a similar positionwho are falsely accused and convicted and whose convictions are quashed on appealshould have the proper level of compensation.
	With the current system, under section 133(4) of the Criminal Justice Act, it is not possible to appeal against the decision of the assessor. In this case, the assessor was Lord Brennan, a member of the other place and a distinguished lawyer who clearly understands the way in which the legal system operates. However, despite the eminence of Lord Brennan, the fact remains that if an assessment is wrongaccording to Dr. Modwadia, his assessment does not take into consideration his loss of earnings over the past 20 years; he was a qualified doctor and by now he would have been a very senior consultant in a hospital in the United Kingdomit is extremely important that somebody else should have the opportunity to look at that assessment. Under the current law, no one can do so. I had a private Member's Billa behind-the-Chair Billbefore the House, which has now fallen. It is extremely important to ensure that Ministers are aware of the gap in the law, in relation not just to Dr. Modwadia but to other people in similar situations, and that we have a right of appeal against an assessment that has already been made.
	My final point is about Lebanon and a call that I received yesterday from a person who operates a glass-making factory on the road between Beirut and Damascus. Two days ago, he evacuated his employees from the factory, because he feared that bombs might fall on it. The day before yesterday, four Israeli missiles hit the factory and razed it to the ground. There is absolutely nothing left. His concernand the concern, I am sure, of others involved in similar casesis what will happen about compensation for British citizens who have property in Lebanon. I rang the Lebanese ambassador, who was not available. I then had a lengthy conversationit was a bit heatedwith the deputy ambassador for Israel. He explained why Israel was doing what it was doing. I have enormous sympathy with the comments made recently by the Minister for the Middle East; I agree with everything that he said about the disproportionate nature of the Israeli attacksbut I put that to one side. My concern is what happens to British citizens whose property is being destroyed.
	Clearly the Foreign Office is fully engaged in the cases of those who are trying to get out of Lebanon, and I pay tribute to Ministers and officials, who have moved extremely fast to make sure that as many British citizens as possible are removed and brought to the safety of other countries. However, the worry for my constituent and others is that they have nowhere to register their loss of property. Obviously, the people who worked in the factory no longer have jobs, because the factory is no longer there. We cannot register that with the Israeli authorities, because they have no mechanism for doing so. I hope that, in his summing up, the Minister will be able to give some indication to the House of what should happen to those who are in such a situation. I look forward to hearing his full response to the three issues that I have raised.

John Bercow: The hon. Gentleman anticipates a phenomenon that is likely to display itself in the course of the debate. Is he awarehe certainly will be when I have finished my interventionthat the Vale of Aylesbury Primary Care Trust is, disgracefully, saying that it is closed to new entrants if they are children with speech and language disorders? Is this not a classic case of a conflict between the Government insisting on the merits of early intervention, and the cost cutters preparing to damage, perhaps irrevocably, the life chances of vulnerable children, in the name of penny-pinching?

Mike Hall: In the time allotted I hope to raise four issues that are constituency based but have implications for national legislation.
	The first case is tragic. In the last two years, two baby girls living in adjoining properties in my constituency have died of acute myeloid leukaemia. We have tried to understand the epidemiology of that cancer, which is rare in young girls, and it has been established that the houses in which they lived were built on a landfill site. There is clear evidence that methane has seeped out from that site and there may also have been traces of benzene, which is a very dangerous chemical.
	I suggested to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister that it would be a good idea for tenants considering properties that have been built on landfill sites, reclaimed land or brownfield sites, to be told the history of the land so that they can make an informed choice about whether to take on the tenancies. So far the Government have declined to take that up, but I want to press the Minister on it today, because it is a good suggestion, which would allow prospective tenants the opportunity to make decisions about where they live in the knowledge of the conditions in which their properties have been built. If my hon. Friend the Minister cannot deal with that matter when he replies, I should be grateful if he passed it on to the appropriate Department.
	The second issue that I want to raise concerns wheel clamping. Last year, a constituent of mine in Northwich had his vehicle clamped, he thought illegally. The Private Security Industry Act 2001 placed regulatory controls over wheel clamping companies and the Security Industry Authority implements the regulations. I was advised that for a vehicle to be legally clamped, the owner had to be issued with a receipt bearing the name and signature of the operative, the date and location of the clamping episode, and the registration number of the person doing the clamping. If the receipt does not contain the registration number of a clamping operative, the clamping is illegal and the owner of the vehicle can insist on the clamp being removed.
	I was able to prove to the SIA that the receipt that my constituent received did not bear the location, the clamper's name or the operative's number. I asked for that to be investigated and the SIA said that it would do so, but would not be able to tell me the outcome. When I queried that, it said that to do so would prejudice its investigation. So I asked it to carry out its investigation and tell me what it had done afterwards. It then wrote back and said that it did not deal with individual complaints. I then asked if the receipt was valid, and after an extensive correspondence I was able to confirm that the receipt was invalid. But the SIA does not have the authority to intervene in individual cases, such as that of my constituent. Individuals need to know what is legal when a vehicle is clamped and whom to complain to if they think that that has been carried out illegally by an unregistered clamping organisation, such as North West Clamping, the company in this case.
	The third issue that I raise is another serious matter. On 21 December 1994, a constituent of mine, Stephen Cuddy was murdered in Liverpool city centre by a man who was seriously mentally ill. That person went to prison for manslaughter. On behalf of my constituent Mrs. Cuddy, the mother of the deceased, I have been trying to establish what happened to the person who killed her son. I have established that the man who killed her son was remanded at Kettering magistrates court to Woodhill prison. He appeared in the magistrates court on a number of other occasions, but was released on 21 November 1994. I am trying to establish why that particular individual appeared in court and what conditions were placed on his release. The clerk to Northamptonshire magistrates courts has told me that I need the authority of either a justice of the peace or the Lord Chancellor to look at the court register, and it must also be established whether I am a fit and proper person to apply for that information.
	The most important test on the release of information is whether it relates to an ongoing case. However, I am not discussing an ongoing case, because the manslaughter of Mr. Cuddy has been dealt with by the courts. It is important that Members of Parliament and members of the general public have access to such information, because it is on the public record and was in the public domain when that person appeared in the magistrates court in 1994. I find it inconceivable that anyone would refuse a request from a Member of Parliament to obtain such information. Through the auspices of my hon. Friend the Deputy Leader of the House, I want to press the Lord Chancellor, because if the rules prevent hon. Members from accessing court records on matters that have been dealt with in open court, then they need to be changed.
	Fourthly, on a much more positive note, my constituency contains Daresbury laboratory, which is currently devising a new piece of experimental kit. That is probably an understatement, because the laboratory is a world-leading research facility, which will take on the next generation of synchrotron radiation research. The massive piece of kit, which is only a prototype, accelerates electrons as close as possible to the speed of light, and the electrons are then peeled off in straight lines to X-ray materials in real time. That is the lay person's view, although I think that the matter is far more complicated than that. The prototype has been built at Daresbury, and we are looking forward to a decision stating that the project is desirable because it will take British science forward, that the money will be made available and that the project will take place at Daresbury laboratory. My hon. Friends the Members for Warrington, South (Helen Southworth), for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Andrew Miller) and for Halton (Derek Twigg) and I have met Lord Sainsbury to press the case. We hope that this time the decision recognises the world-leading facilities and research at Daresbury laboratory, which is valuable in terms of not only pure science, but intellectual property, patents and other associated matters.
	I want to use the final 40 seconds of my speech to pay tribute to my close personal friend, Kevin Hughes, who died last week from motor neurone disease and who was the former hon. Member for Doncaster, North. He was a fabulous friend and great company. He was also an extremely good Whip and had a very good sense of humour, which he kept until the end. When I saw him recently, I said, Kevin, I see that you are still smoking. He said, Mike, lung cancer would be a blessing. We will miss him greatlyhis funeral is tomorrow. I am pleased that I have been able to put my tribute in  Hansard to Kevin Hughes, who was a thoroughly decent guy.

David Maclean: Before we rise for the summer recess, I want to say a few words about the ongoing situation in Cumbria.
	I want to discuss the dire plight of dairy farmers not only in Cumbria, but across the United Kingdom. In July 2005, a report commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs showed not only that more dairy farms ceased production between April 2003 and April 2005 than had intended to do so in 2003the increase was 12.4 per cent.but that the closures were concentrated among the larger herds and the bigger, more profitable dairy farms. If the most efficient dairy farmers are quitting the business in droves, it shows that things are not right in the dairy industry. More than 10 dairy farms have gone out of business in every week in the past two years. There are now more DEFRA staff than there are dairy farms in England, although DEFRA has still been unable to get the single farm payment out in anything like a respectable time.
	This is my key point to the Deputy Leader of the House, who used to be the Minister with responsibility for consumer affairs. If all our farmers were to get togetherthey cannot do this, because they are philosophically incapable of working togetherand said, Let's sell our milk at 20p a litre, the Office of Fair Trading would crucify them. When I checked the internet last week, however, Asda was selling milk at 55p a litre, Sainsbury's was, by coincidence, selling milk at 55p a litre, Tesco was selling milk at 55p a litre and Marks and Spencer was selling milk at 55p a litre. That is a cartel. For the OFT to say that there is no evidence of collusion is simplistic. Of course they do not need to colludeone cuts the price, the others look on the website and they all follow. It is a cartel, it is ruthless, it is grubby, and it needs to be stopped. Farmers are selling milk at 14p a litre or, if they are lucky, 15p, 16p or 17p a litre. Someone in the middle is making a huge profit. The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee discovered that 18p a litre is going missing somewhere. It has to be looked at and it has to change.
	Our economic situation in Cumbria is not good, and I make no apologies for returning to that subject. Economic growth in Cumbria is the slowest of any area in the UK and, indeed, in the whole EU. In those circumstances, we must have EU funding coupled with designation as an assisted area for regional aid purposes. The economy in Cumbria is now as dire as Liverpool's was when the Government brought in massive intervention to help that city, and rightly so. The Government recently issued a consultation on the content of the national strategic reference framework. I understand that that document will set the priorities of financial allocation for the 2007-2013 structural funds programme. It is vital that it pay proper attention to the needs of areas with low and declining GVAgross value addedsuch as Cumbria. It is also vital that when the final draft is published Cumbria should receive a dedicated top slice of the national allocation of regional competitiveness funds. That would not be a precedent for any other county or region of the United Kingdom because no other part of the UK, from the highlands of Scotland to Cornwall to Liverpool, is in as dire a situation as Cumbria.
	I hope that the Government can find some sort of special programme for areas such as Cumbria or an increased regional allocation designed to offset the impact of economic decline in such areas. At the same time, we need assisted area designation to allow us to use public funds to invest in the private enterprise that is so importantly needed. I understand that a national consultation is under way on assisted areas, and I say again that the designation must take into account those parts of the UK with low and declining GVA. No other part of the whole of the UK is as poorly off in terms of GVA as we are in Cumbria; in fact, only five other areas in the whole of Europe are as poorly off. We have great economic need that must be targeted. Unless we get that assistance, it will be impossible to arrest the decline in the Cumbrian economy even if our nuclear industry at Sellafield is boosted rather than run down.
	Two weeks ago, I got together with all the Conservative group leaders of councils in Cumbria, those that we control and those that we do not. We issued a statement saying that we, as the Conservative representatives for Cumbria, commend Sellafield as a centre for excellence and research and believe that in order to sustain our economy, support local businesses and preserve local employment, we need a new generation of nuclear power stations and cannot allow the reprocessing facility at Sellafield to be decommissioned. We called on the Government to invest in Sellafield and Cumbria's economy to dispose of all nuclear waste instead of exporting our waste to be processed abroad, which would export local jobs. We said that we are pleased that in 2004 3.1 per cent. of the UK's electricity supply came from renewable energy, but noted that the Government are highly unlikely to meet their target of 10 per cent. of electricity produced from renewables by 2010. We said that while we believe that renewable energy has an important part to play in our future energy mix, especially biofuels, of which we should produce a lot more, renewable energy will not be able to meet our energy needs for the foreseeable future. We concluded by saying that in the interests of the people of Cumbria and of England, we call on the Government fully to support nuclear power to ensure that more investment of all kinds is directed to Cumbria.
	Let me say a few words about the continuing saga of our community hospitals. The whole thrust of the recent White Paper, Our Health, Our Care, Our Say: a new direction for community services, is to shift care more into community settings and to boost the role of community hospitals. The Government say that 750 million will be available for capital expenditure to develop care in the community. I want specific assurances on the community hospitals that we already have in Cumbria. In particular, I want assurances on some aspects of paragraph 6 of the White Paper. Do the Government accept that there are now no circumstances in which any of our community hospitals should lose their intermediate care beds? In paragraph 6.31 of the White Paper, the Government express the wish that
	we want there to be an overall shift of resources from hospitals to care in the community settings.
	What will they do to carry it out? What will they do to compel all the hospital trusts to follow the White Paper demands that
	we should see spending on primary and community care begin to grow faster than spending on acute hospitals?
	Paragraphs 6.38 and 6.39 of the White Paper state among other things that
	we will over the next five years develop a new generation of modern NHS community hospitals.
	Paragraph 6.39 sets out the facilities that they should have. Do the Government accept that, in Cumbria, we already have community hospitals, which have 80 to 90 per cent. of what the Government want, according to the White Paper? All the Government have to do is give the community hospitals the funding to continue to their day-to-day running costs. Those facilities should not be downgraded because their running costs are not fully met. Without that assurance from the Government, the next paragraph is worthless.
	Paragraph 6.42 states:
	However we are clear that community facilities should not be lost in response to short term budgetary pressures that are not related to the viability of the community facility itself.
	My concern about the plan is that the Government have 750 million and that they will spend it on new hospitals in the cities. The rural areas have the hospitals but we will not get money to run them. I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary can reassure me that that is not the case.

Joan Ruddock: Tempted though I am to try to counter the arguments of the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) about nuclear energy, I want to consider another matter.
	Last Friday,  The Independent printed one of its iconic front pages. On the left were the flags of 189 countries that supported the United Nations call for a ceasefire in the middle east and on the right was a large white space with only three dots of colourIsrael, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. That is not where I want my country to beisolated, tied to a US Administration run by neocons and headed by a religious zealot.
	I have no quarrel with the American or Israeli people but I do not share their leaders' views of the world and I know that my constituents do not, as they frequently tell me. We must have a good working relationship with the US, as other European countries do. However, it is time to acknowledge the contradictions between fulfilling our wider international goals and responsibilities and trying to stay on side with George Bush.
	In so many ways, the Government have been a beacon of progressive thinking. We have a proud record in peacekeeping and democracy-building. We have been generous in response to disasters. We have worked hard to make the World Bank more accountable and we have done much to bring about reform of the United Nations. We have led the world on climate change, debt relief and poverty alleviation. We even pushed the EU into adopting better terms for the development round of the World Trade Organisation talks.
	All those and more are great British initiativesBritish policies of which we are justly proud. However, are they reflected in the special relationship? They are not. The Kyoto treaty was concluded on terms that were believed to suit the Americans but they steadfastly refused to adopt it. They have consistently undermined the UN and this week, they collapsed the WTO talks.
	We have failed to make the special relationship work for us. It might not matter so much if we had not paid such a high price in supporting the United States military action in Iraq. In doing that, we began the separation from the world community that has become so stark in recent days.
	Let me be clear. I am no pacifist and I had no problems with military action in Afghanistan. Defeating the Taliban and rooting out al-Qaeda was in everyone's interest. If it were not for the folly of Iraq, I believe that we would have made greater progress in that tragic country. Instead we have exacerbated the conditions in which terrorism flourishes. We all know that it is impossible to end terrorism in the middle east if there is no justice for the Palestinians. Only the US has the power to bring about that solution. Perhaps if we had joined the rest of the world last week in condemning Israel's disproportionate use of force, an isolated US might have taken action sooner. It now lies in ruins, and support for Hezbollah, which is responsible for recklessly starting this conflict, has probably increased. This ought to give us cause to reflect on our role in the world, and particularly on our contribution to fighting terrorism and its causes.
	In a single decade, our world has changed so rapidly and violently that we need a completely new approach. As I said at the beginning of my speech, our Government have led so much of the progressive agenda. So often, however, we adopt contradictory positions. The recently announced proposal to replace Trident represents just such a contradiction. The UK has worked really hard to keep the non-proliferation treaty alive and to find a diplomatic route to containing Iran's nuclear ambitions. In Trident, we have maintained an awesome nuclear capability, but we have made it clear that, following the end of the cold war, the weapons are no longer targeted.
	The non-proliferation treaty was designed to outlaw nuclear weapons, not to endorse them. Without any progress on nuclear disarmament, there can be no intellectual or moral argument against the acquisition of nuclear weapons by any other state. Someone has to break this logjam, and Britain is well placed to do that by forgoing a replacement for Trident.
	The deterrence theory that underpins our continued possession of nuclear weapons has long been found wanting. Those weapons did not deter Argentina in the Falklands, or today's terrorist attacks on Israel. Neither has their mutual possession deterred war between India and Pakistan. On the contrary, all talk in the US now is of bunker-busting nukes and weapons designed not to deter but to fight and wage war. How can we possibly justify spending 20 billion on a weapons system for which we cannot even define a use? Our global enemies are failed states, terrorism, climate change, and the poverty and religious divides that fuel conflict. Nuclear weapons can play no part in meeting such challenges.
	An Adjournment debate at the end of a difficult Session such as this is a good place to ask what kind of country we want to be. Robin Cook, writing in  The Guardian in 2004, said that
	the political values and global priorities of the US and Europe are diverging rather than converging. Clinging to an outdated special relationship is to stay in denial of that uncomfortable truth.
	How we miss Robin Cook!
	In this country, we have an extraordinary wealth of talent, entrepreneurship, rights and freedoms. We have a great history, and the greatest riches in our arts and cultural life. We have the most diverse capital city in the world. This is why we won the Olympic bid. It is time to choose not to be a country defined by its special relationship and its nuclear weapons, but to be one whose international status rests on an intellectual and moral authority exercised within the rule of law.

John Stanley: I, too, wish to refer to the community hospitals in my constituency: Tonbridge hospital and Edenbridge hospital. The two hospitals have a similar past and, sadly, a similar present. Both were founded after the first world war as a result of private benefactions and donations and taken into the national health service under the National Health Service Act 1946. Since then, they have both attracted huge amounts of additional financial support from the private sector, running to hundreds of thousands of pounds from private donations and the wonderful activities of their leagues of friends. Both hospitals provide outstanding nursing care and levels of treatment. And yet both hospitals, under the orders of the South West Kent primary care trust, have half their beds taken out of use. The future of both hospitals is at present clouded in uncertainty.
	That situation arises not because of any local failure by the South West Kent primary care trust, but because of a disastrous decision taken by the Secretary of State. We face not a local, individual, constituency crisis for community hospitals, but a national one. If ever there were a clear demonstration of that, it was in this House on 28 March, when, I understand, there was the largest ever simultaneous presentation of petitions by 21 right hon. and hon. Members, involving 45 separate community hospitals the length and breadth of the country, from the constituency of my right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) down to Kent and the east and west. It is a national crisis, which has been occasioned by the Secretary of State.
	The Secretary of State took, in my view, a reckless decision to give absolute priority to one single political targetachieving the 18-week waiting time for acute hospitals, regardless of the consequences elsewhere. To achieve that, she introduced Payment by Results, the new acute hospitals tariff, on 1 April 2005. The desirable consequence of that was a great deal of additional activity in acute hospitals, with waiting times coming down. Regrettably, however, the Secretary of State failed to accompany an improved tariff for acute hospitals with proper revenue arrangements for community hospitals. As a consequence, a significant switch of resources away from community hospitals to the acute sector has taken place.
	In my constituency, the South West Kent primary care trust estimates that the consequence of the Secretary of State's introduction of Payment by Results for the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS acute hospitals trust is a transfer of approximately 2 million a year from the community sector to the acute sector. Predictably, primary care trusts across the country have gone from the black into the red. By virtue of being in deficit, their community hospitals are under threat. The Secretary of State's announcement of the 750 million of capital will not improve the situation at all. It is capital that will be hard-contested by all Members with community hospitals in their constituencies. The first bids, for the first tranche of 150 million, go in by 30 September, and I suspect that the total bids will be way in excess of that figure. That does not deal with the revenue crisis facing community hospitals.
	There are only two routes to solving that crisis. Either the Secretary of State must introduce a proper tariff for community hospitals, or she must extend Payment by Results to cover the community hospital sector. Sadly, it seems that she is setting her face against both of those obvious solutions. The written answer that I received from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), on 17 July, stated:
	We will set out shortly plans for the national tariff in 2007-08 but we have never said there will be a community hospital tariff.[ Official Report, 17 July 2006; Vol. 449, c. 245W.]
	Therefore, the community hospital tariff seems to be off the Government's agenda.
	As for extending Payment by Results to the community hospital sector, the Secretary of State said in her letter to me last week, dated 18 July:
	For services outside the scope of PbR (such as community services) funding should be negotiated locally.
	What an answer that is! Why should the community hospitals and PCTs be the Oliver Twists of the national health service, reduced to going out begging local providers for income so that they can return their beds to use? The situation is grossly unfair and unreasonable.
	I put it to the Minister, and through him to the Secretary of State, that the position of community hospitals throughout the country is unacceptable. My two hospitals in Tonbridge and Edenbridge ask reasonably and justifiably, with my full support, why 80 years of private donation, effort, fundraising and excellent community care should risk being swept away by the bulldozer as a result of the Secretary of State's mismanagement of NHS finances. That is the central question.
	I say to the Minister that the Secretary of State must address the revenue issues. She must provide an assured source of revenue for the community sector, as for the acute hospital sector. Until that happens, there will not be the assured future for community hospitals in this country that, in Edenbridge and Tonbridge and up and down the country, they deserve and need.

Iain Wright: I want to use this opportunity to talk about how my constituency of Hartlepool is looking forward with ambition to the 21st century by learning from the experience of the town's economic growth in the 19th century.
	This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of the man who is universally seen as the founder of west Hartlepool, Ralph Ward Jackson. It was Ward Jackson arguably more than any other individual who had a vision and saw the potential of an underdeveloped area. He also, in 1868, became the town's first Member of Parliament. Ward Jackson primary school has been undertaking research on his life this year. That included a visit to the House, and I pay tribute to the school's hard work.
	The school found that Ward Jackson was not a regular parliamentary attender. Indeed, the only contribution that he appears to have made is a vehement objection to the publishing of parliamentary proceedings. But although not a strong parliamentarian, he had a strong vision for the town. In a letter to  The Times in September 1863, he described the scene on the land between old Hartlepool and Seaton Carew. He wrote:
	West Hartlepool, with its fine harbour, docks, warehouses and town, situate on the west shore of Hartlepool Bay was, in 1844, an open beach, skirted by sandhills, and behind the desert ridge was an open agricultural country. A solitary farmhouse and a windmill were the only indications of human life and industry that marked the spot. In 1844 there were no works of any kind, no capital, no shipping, no commerce.
	Following a slow and gradual decline in the fortunes of the area in the 18th century, the nobility and gentry of the north of England stayed for the summer months in what Robert Wood, in his history of west Hartlepool, described as
	the romantic old town of Hartlepool and the smart seaside resort of Seaton Carew.
	But there was very little enterprise, industry or ambition.
	Ward Jackson saw that if he was able to transport coal from the Durham mines to the London markets faster and more cheaply than the relatively new Stockton to Darlington railway, he could make a fortune. He believed that that was possible through the geographical advantage that the Hartlepool coastline gave him: a quick turnaround of ships in the docks made west Hartlepool the most competitive port in the region. As well as coal, nearby iron ore from the Cleveland hills was soon transported via the new Hartlepool port. Shipbuilding yards, engineering plants and other associated businesses were soon set up.
	The economic and industrial growth of the town was phenomenal. Within 20 years, west Hartlepool had grown to be the fourth largest port in the United Kingdom for foreign merchandise exports, just behind Liverpool, London and Hull. By the outbreak of the first world war, one eighteenth of the British shipping fleet, in terms of tonnage, had been launched from or was owned by Hartlepool yards. That was at a time when the British fleet was bigger than the rest of the world's fleets put together. How on earth was it done? I think that the best analysis comes from Ward Jackson himself. In his 1863 letter to  The Times, he wrote:
	It being obvious that, in a totally new creation such as west Hartlepool is, success would best and most surely be realised by making the harbour and docks and every requisite arrangement for shipping and commercial enterprise as comprehensive and perfect as practicable, and in the shortest time.
	I am a lover of history and I believe that the study of the past can teach us some pertinent lessons for the future. For much of the 20th century, Hartlepool has been in decline. The traditional industries that Ward Jackson helped to introduce have become obsolete and Hartlepool has spent the last few decades coming to terms with the social and economic repercussions of that decline. We are still dealing with low productivity and economic inactivity and levels of enterprise and innovation that are too low.
	Given the challenges and opportunities of the new century, however, I believe that my town can have as bright a future as the one that faced my Victorian predecessors. That will be achieved by embracing Ward Jackson's principle of providing a comprehensive, professional and positive environment in which to start and grow businesses, promote skills and improve the quality of life.
	The world economy is forecast to grow by about 80 per cent. by 2020. Globalisationthe interconnectivity and free movement of trade, people, capital and informationwill occur at a faster rate than ever before. The greatest benefits of globalisation will accrue to those cities, regions and countries that can access and adopt new technologies. The manner in which those technologies can be integrated and applied will be crucial to a region's prospects for prosperity.
	Globalisation means that people, particularly those with the highest skills, will be wanted throughout the world and, given the ease of technology and communication, can be located anywhere in the world. The challenge for cities and regions will be to ensure that the infrastructure and environment of their particular areatheir sense of placeare conducive to creating a modern, creative, diverse and innovative place to live, work, raise children and relax, so that talented and ambitious workers will be attracted and will wish to stay.
	The expanding global economy will, quite literally, fuel an unprecedented demand for raw materials, particularly energy. It is estimated that total energy demand will rise by about 50 per cent. in the years to 2020, compared with 34 per cent. for the period 1980 to 2000. Growing demand from China, India and Brazil, in addition to continuing demand from the US and in conjunction with increasing political volatility in the middle east, will help to keep oil prices high. Pressure is rightly growing to use more renewable sources of energy, so these trends will also mean that regions that help to capture and refine the energy will become increasingly important.
	Hartlepool and the wider Tees valley will play a large part in the world's modern energy sector. There is the rise of biofuels and the hydrogen economy being developed at Seal Sands, and oil and gas-related activities provided by Heerema Hartlepool, which include project design, engineering, construction and commissioning of offshore oil and gas installations. Heerema has just completed the Buzzard project for Nexen Petroleum and has embarked on its next project, the construction of a Britannia satellite platform. My constituency also has Corus pipe mills, a truly global and first-class firm providing the highest quality products made in Hartlepool to assist in the extraction and distribution of energy throughout the world. I have no doubt that by 2020 Hartlepool will be synonymous globally with energy production excellence.
	I mentioned that in the period before Ward Jackson and the emerging manufacturing industry, Hartlepool was becoming something of a tourist attraction and I think that in the 21st century we can have both: we can have a modern manufacturing industrial sector, providing high-value jobs, coupled with a reputation for being an excellent tourist destination. Our coastline is breathtaking, our marine facilities are world class and the recent decision on a direct rail link between London and Hartlepool will provide a fresh boost to the town's economy.
	In the last month or so, the town has been awarded the Tall Ships event for 2010. That is on a par for my town with Liverpool's being city of culture for 2008 and London's winning of the Olympics for 2012. Credit must be given to the Hartlepool borough council's economic development team, which worked hard to get the Tall Ships to Hartlepool. The challenge, as with Liverpool and London, is to ensure that the event provides a legacy that will embed Hartlepool's reputation for quality, professionalism and friendliness.
	Ralph Ward Jackson saw the economic and commercial benefits that could be realised from Hartlepool's distinct physical features. He established a modern infrastructure that was conducive to enterprise, to starting and growing a business and to attracting and retaining highly skilled workers. He, more than most, was acutely aware of the importance of that sense of place. In the 21st century, Hartlepool needs to adopt its founder's model again.

Angela Browning: I should like to draw attention this afternoon to the way in which public sector contracts are written, implemented and managed and their impact on my constituents. Whether we are dealing with a service contractfor example, for hospital ward cleaningor a procurement contract for something such as military helicopters, if the contracts are not drawn up, monitored and implemented properly, it has a huge impact on the services or goods that are ultimately provided.
	In the past few weeks, I have to deal with the contracts drawn up by the NHS as part of the change in the way that people in the community are provided with oxygen cylinders. Previously, oxygen cylinders were provided through pharmacies and GP practices, usually at 24 hours' notice. Many people of all ages rely on those cylinders at home. However, the Government have decided to cut out the middle man, and Air Products Ltd now has the contract, under which it was meant to provide the cylinders, guaranteeing delivery at three days' notice; but that is not happening and the impact on some very seriously ill people and their carers is quite profound.
	For example, I know of a two-and-a-half-year-old with a very serious heart condition who needs 24-hour coverage with oxygen cylinders. The parents became quite desperate because they could not get access to a delivery within three days. Equally, I know of cases of elderly people who have not been able to get hold of cylinders in time and were frequently promised, day after day, that they would get them on a certain day, including at weekends, but they did not come.
	I have been in touch with Air Products. I should have thought that, if the Government wanted to change the system from pharmacies and GP practices supplying the cylinders, they would have got all their ducks in a row and the contract would have been put in place and seen to be working before they made the switch, but that is not the case. One of my constituents was told by the head of the medicines, pharmacy and industry business unitwhatever that isat the Department of Health:
	you are experiencing
	problems
	with delivery of oxygen supplies for your wife and I appreciate that you will want to be sure of a reliable service. Understandably, patients and clinicians are concerned about these service problems.
	When I looked into this, I found all sorts of problems. Cylinders are still with pharmacies. There are problems with people stockpiling things because they are in short supply, which, in itself, creates a shortage. There are also problems with people answering the phones at Air Products Ltd, and I was told that those problems are caused by the fact that so many people are ringing the company that it is having to train staff, who are not yet trained, and until they are trained, they cannot answer the phone in a timely way. I put that to the test to find out how long it took my office to get someone to answer the phone, and it took nearly 15 minutes.
	We see those problems right across the public sector. I am also concerned not just about the Government's management of that contract, but about the change in Devon to adult services, particularly those for the elderly and people with learning disabilities. The contracts are about to be turned over to the people who supply the services. I asked the question, Please will you get the services in place before you make the change? However, throughout the public sector, there seems to be a lack of skill and understanding about the commissioning and negotiation of contracts and about how to make sure that, if a supplier does not fulfil a contract, the sort of things that should be written into the contract are implemented to ensure that the goods and services are delivered on time. It seems symptomatic across the public sector that people are let down and that people who seriously need goods and services, such as my constituents, are put in such a position purely because the public sector does not seem to understand procurement or how to write a proper public service contract.

Angela Browning: My hon. Friend is right, and anyone who has ever been involved in procurement or writing service contracts, whether in the public or the private sector, knows that there are some pretty rudimentary rules to follow in getting things in place before making any change. To leave it and see what happens and then decide to train people and change the contract is a back-to-front way of going about this.
	I wish to raise another matter. At the beginning of the Iraq war, many Members started receiving representations from constituents whose relatives were serving in the armed forces. The then Secretary of State said that it was the wrong time and place to make complaints and draw to public attention concerns about the equipment provided to our armed services. I know that there are wars going on around the worldand I must say in response to the comments of the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) that although I do not agree with the views that were expressed on Trident, I do agree with the analysis of the situation in Lebanon and the middle eastbut what I am about to say must be said.
	Many of my constituents who have close relatives serving in the armed forces are genuinely worried not only about overstretch and various other issues that we have recently aired in this Chamber, but about the fact that people serving in the armed forces are increasingly having to buy privately basic pieces of kit and equipment that, frankly, should be provided, and the fact that, in respect of kit procured by the Ministry of Defence, it should be procured in keeping with a set of benchmarks and standards that we would expect to be met.
	We have increasing numbers of such debates in this House. Our armed forces serve in new theatres of war around the globe, and it is incumbent upon usas a nation and as a Parliamentto know about these matters and to be able to reassure relatives, some of whose families have given generations of service to the armed forces, so they know what the implications of service are, that the kit is the best that we can possibly afford and that it is reliable. However, I have grave reservations in respect of both small personal kit and some of the larger procurement contracts that the MOD negotiates.
	I was reminded of that at the weekend. There is a family in my constituency whose son is serving in the armed forces. That family has a long history of serving this country. I felt that if such a family express concern about the provision for their son, we in this place should take such comments very seriously indeed. The issue is not only about the practicalities of the way that contracts are negotiated; it is also about knowing, when we ask people in our armed forces to carry out their duties, that from the centrewhichever party is in powerwe enable them, through their equipment, to maximise their protection and their confidence in the job that we ask them to do.
	That links in with my theme today, which is that public sector contracts should be negotiated in a correct and proper manner, and that that should be implemented not only in respect of the public sector contracts that I have mentioned such as those to do with oxygen cylinders, but particularly in terms of the services and goods that are provided to those serving in our armed forces.

Michael Wills: It is a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning), whom I congratulate on raising with characteristic eloquence the case involving Air Products. I, too, have constituents who have suffered as a result of that company, although I must say that I was somewhat surprised that she seemed more inclined to blame for the shambles the Government's procurement policies than the company itself, where the responsibility must surely primarily lie.
	On past occasions when I have been fortunate enough to be able to speak in debates such as this, I have tended to use the opportunity to urge Swindon borough council to make much needed improvements in their performance, but on this occasion I want to start differentlyI want to celebrate something. This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth not only Ralph Ward Jackson of Hartlepool, but of the founder of modern Swindon, Isambard Kingdom Brunel. In 1840, his 21-year-old lieutenant, Daniel Gooch, wrote to him recommending the small hilltop market town of Swindon as the site for the Great Western Railway's new engine works, saying:
	The only objection I see to Swindon is the bad supply of water.
	I must say that those of my constituents who have recently sufferedand those who have suffered for many yearsfrom the neglect of Thames Water and the regular flooding of their homes with sewage because that utility company will not make the necessary investment to prevent that from happeningdespite making 350 million in profit last yearmight well take the view that not much has changed in Swindon since 1840.
	For more than 100 years, the railway works flourished under the stewardship of great engineers such as Churchward, Collett and Hawksworth, whose names live on not just in Swindon street names, but in a tradition of engineering excellence and innovation. Those who visit the steam museum in SwindonI recommend that all Members of this House and every member of the public visit this fascinating and excellent world-class museumcan see this tradition exemplified in a display board of carriage-door locks. It shows that those engineers were never content and were constantly refining and improving their production, driven, above all, by pride in their craft. That is a lesson for successful businesses everywhere.
	That pride, excellence and innovation still underpins manufacturing in Swindon. This is still a town built more than most on manufacturingon Honda and all the other world-class manufacturing businesses located in the town. It is a town that knows better than most that manufacturing mattersin its own right, and for all the benefits that it brings to the economy as a whole.
	Brunel was, in the words of his biographer Tom Rolt,
	the archetype of the heroic age of the engineer.
	However, no country can rely on the genius of individuals alone for the economy to thrive. The manufacturing on which Swindon and this country depends requires that the Government create the environment in which it can prosper.
	I want to spend the rest of the time allotted to me drawing attention to two areas on which it is very important that the Government continue to focus their attention, as I hope they will. In repairing the neglect of decades, the Department of Trade and Industry identified seven key conditions for creating the necessary infrastructure: macroeconomic stability; investment; the promulgation of best practices; the constant improving of skills and education levels; improving the transport and communications infrastructures; and creating the conditions for dynamic, open and transparent markets. They are all important, but I want to use this opportunity to focus attention on two particular areas.
	Science and innovation relates to the seventh key condition identified by the DTI, and the Government have given it unprecedented support. Since 1997, they have doubled the science budgetto more than 3 billionand given industry and scientists the confidence to plan long term for the future by setting out a 10-year framework for science and innovation investment.
	Today, I want to welcome the increasing emphasis on basic scienceacquiring understanding, as opposed to applied research for specific purposes. At a time of economic and technological change unprecedented in its speed and extent, it would be unwise to invest disproportionately in applied research that could become out of date in a few years. It is often better to invest in the fundamental understanding that can, and does, lead to extraordinary applications that are often completely impossible to conceive at the outset of research. In 1984, for example, Tim Berners-Lee took up a fellowship at CERN, the European organisation for nuclear research, and five years later he suggested a global hypertext project to enable the various existing national proprietary computer technologies housed within this multinational institution to communicate better with each other. This became the worldwide web, and was the basis of the internet revolution that now reaches into every area of our lives. That was completely impossible to foresee just a few years beforehand.
	The percentage of total Government research and development funding spent on basic research increased from 31.5 per cent. in 1997 to 39 per cent. in 2003, and it is vital that this focus continues. Enabling brilliance to shine is essential for prosperity, as our competitors understand. China is planning to double the proportion of its RD spending on basic science in the next decade. We cannot ever afford ever to fall behind.
	The second area to which I wish to draw attention is even more fundamental to scientific and technological achievement: a culture in which the command of mathematics is widespread. This is not the occasion on which to rehearse all the challenges that we face in achieving that aim. However, in 2004 Professor Adrian Smith, acting on a Government remit, reported to the Education Secretary that although mathematics
	provides the language and analytical tools underpinning much of our scientific and industrial research and development...we currently face a situation of long term decline in the numbers of young people continuing to study mathematics post-16.
	Professor Smith came up with far-reaching proposals to tackle the problem, and the Government are developing them. For example, in tackling the problem that too few of those teaching maths are adequately qualified, the Government are driving attempts to raise the percentage of lessons taught by those with a specialism in maths. Some 88 per cent. of those lessons today are delivered by such specialists and that figure should be 95 per cent. by 2014. Progress must continue. As we celebrate the bicentennial of the world's greatest engineerthe founder of Swindon, whose name is indelibly associated with the town that I have the honour to representwe must continue to ensure that we nourish an environment in which future Brunels can flourish.
	May I conclude my remarks by taking this opportunity to wish you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and the House a peaceful and creative recess?

Jacqui Lait: The problem is much more intractable than my hon. Friend suggests, although I hope that those people who hope to make some sustainable arrangements will take his points into account.
	I also wish to raise a domestic terrorist issue, which is that of the animal rights terrorist movement. Unusually, I wish to congratulate the Government on what they have done to try to curb the activities of a few, very aggressive people. I was pleased that we were able to send down those appalling people who behaved so badly in the guinea pig farm case. I was pleased to note that the Companies Bill contains provisions to make it more difficult for such organisations, although they are unfortunately fairly shrewd and clever, to gain access to shareholders' names and addresses from the registers of companies. Because Wellcome used to be based in Beckenham, I have a disproportionate number of constituents who hold shares in some pharmaceutical companies, and they have suffered not only from the latest outrage but from the phone calls at 4 am and the posters stuck on their gates and their neighbours' gates calling them murderers. That is not the sort of treatment that should be suffered by retired, older people.
	I urge the Minister to ensure that all the reorganisation in the Home Office does not cause the Government to take their eye off this particular ball. We have to maintain a high level of policing against animal terrorists, and make sure that the animal terrorist unit is able to continue its work. We must also use all possible legislative means to curb the terrorists' activities.
	The people who are involved in animal terrorism believe that direct action works, and they have set out to train a younger generation to continue what is an outrageous attack on one of this country's key industries. Everyone in this Chamber has benefited from its work, and I suspect that the same is true of the animal terrorists. If they are allowed to continue to take action against the industry, investors will make their decisions accordingly and facilities will close. That will happen quietly and graduallythere will be no announcement that it is due to the industry being targeted by the animal terrorists, but investors will decide that they can invest more profitably elsewhere. As a result, one of our leading industries will simply trickle away to countries that offer a more supportive environment.
	Finally, I turn to a matter raised by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow). The question of back gardens being treated as brownfield sites is of great importance to people in London's outer suburbs, and throughout the country. The hon. Gentleman gave various reasons why blocks of flats should no longer be built in back gardens, a problem that affects my constituency as much as his, but he slightly glossed over the way that a suburb's character can change because of increased population density.
	People move to a new location as a positive choice. They come to my Beckenham constituency because they want its open spaces, large gardens and wide roads, with all the biodiversity that that implies. They want to bring up their children in leafy areas and they do not want to discover that they are faced with inner-city population densities.
	I raised this matter in a Westminster Hall debate, but the Minister who responded seemed to be proud that housing in the outer suburbs was approaching inner-city densities. I hope that the Government can be persuaded to look againand hardat the question of population density, and at the way that the planning function is becoming increasingly centralised. That centralisation is evident in the proposed transfer of power to the London Mayor, and in the planning guidance announced in a written statement yesterday. That guidance, which is being consulted on, will make it much easier for central Government to dictate how many houses, and of what type, should go where.
	I have long believed that the people who know best what should happen in a locality are the ones who live there. They know that their children need houses, and that older people need different accommodation as they grow older and are no longer able to manage so easily. Local people should be able to decide that their environment will remain as they like it. It is not up to central Government to dictate what should happen.

Alison Seabeck: I am delighted to have this opportunity to raise a very serious issue on behalf of one young man in my constituency, William Watrin Cattrall.
	William was born in England, at Derriford hospital, Plymouth, on 20 June 1996. His father is English, as are his grandparents, and he has lived nowhere other than the UK. William is a very keen and talented sportsman who would like nothing more than to represent his country, England. He swims and trains with Plymouth Leander swimming club, one of the most successful clubs in the country. Indeed, his ambition, like that of many other young people of his age, is to compete in the 2012 Olympics for the country that he regards as his.
	William is a lad like any other. He supports his local football team, Plymouth Argyle; he sees a career for himself in the Royal Navy and he loves bacon and eggs. He is also forthright in his views and supports the campaign, highlighted in the local paper, to provide funding for the Earlybird project, which is carrying out work on diabetes and obesity. I will return to the Earlybird project later.
	However, unlike other boys of his age, William has no status in the UK. He appears to have fallen foul of legislation that has taken four years to implement and was designed to deal with circumstances such as his, where because his mother is not Britishshe has Netherlands citizenshipand because his parents, like many others in this country, were not married at the time of his birth, he is not considered a British citizen. That has caused a number of complications for William, not least the fact that he cannot obtain a passport, despite registering as a minor, as suggested in a response I received from a Home Office Minister last year. That response paralleled guidance from the UK Passport Servicethat if the British-born child of a European economic area national is now refused citizenship, as happened in William's case, it is worth seeking advice and considering an application for registration in due course. William did all that, but it made no difference at all.
	William's mother was not exercising treaty rights at the time of her child's birth. She arrived in the UK in 1995 and felt no need to do so at the time. She was clearly unaware of the implications for her child when he was born a year later. The history of the legislation that affects William is that under section 1 (1) of the British Nationality Act 1981, a person born in the UK will be a British citizen at birth if either parent was then a British citizen or was settled in the UK. Section 50 (9) of the Act goes on to provide that, for that purpose, parent includes the mother, butcrucially in William's casenot the father of an illegitimate child.
	In most other areas of life the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate children has been abandoned, but we continue to retain it for nationality legislation, although, to be fair, the position changed on 1 July this year when section 9 of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Act 2002 finally came into effectfour years after the passage of the Act. However, to the horror of William and his family, it was decided not to apply the provision retrospectively, so as we understand it he no longer has any right to obtain settlement. His mother cannot provide the evidence of her settlement in the UK that is required for the alternative route.
	The Cattrall family, and numerous other families in exactly the same position, want to know why the provision was not applied retrospectively. There were newspaper reports recently of the case of Leo Poole, the child of an Italian mother and a British father, born on 30 Junethe day before the provision came into force. There are similar examples from around the country.
	Through the Minister, I want to ask some questions. What were the reasons for the four-year delay? It surely cannot have been due to lack of availability of parliamentary time. We have found time for a great number of orders to be made since 2002. Why is the provision not being applied retrospectively? Is it the cost, or simply the inability of a hard-pressed Home Office to manage the number of possible cases? Do the Government know the number of people who fall outside the change and who, like William, will continue to fall outside our citizenship rules?
	For some time, William and his family have been pressing me to highlight his plight. His hope was that the change to the 1981 Act would make all the difference, but sadly the benefits of the 2002 Act will not apply to him. He is stateless and very unhappy. He simply wants to know whether the Government will, in due course, revisit the policy or offer further advice if we have misinterpreted the provision. We do not think that we have done so, but if we did I am sure that William would be delighted.
	I want to touch on the Earlybird project, which is being carried out by the Peninsula medical school in Plymouth and led by Professor Terry Wilkin, to research the links between childhood obesity and diabetescurrently at the top of our public health priorities. The project is unique and has received testimonials from around the world. The researchers have visited the House of Commons and given evidence to the Select Committee on Health.
	There is no other similar study at present and it would be catastrophic if this study, which has been going for six years, were stopped at this juncture because of lack of funding. It is a 12-year study of 300 children across Plymouth, from a cross section of socio-economic backgrounds. For six years, the team have been testing the groupsince the members of that group were five years old. The data collected are already proving useful. Surely, if the Government want to ensure that NHS funding is effectively targeted to tackle obesity and the diabetes that follows, strong evidence-based research should be used.
	The future of this valuable project is at risk because 40,000 of NHS funding last year did not materialise. The Peninsula medical school is an excellent new facility, but because it is new it does not have the benefit of some of the longer-standing medical schools in terms of endowments, so it is not able to support the project, as it would certainly want to do. We are talking about a small team of medical researchers, not fundraisers. I have already written to the Minister to urge serious and urgent consideration of the research and development funding required for the project. I hope that, through him, a message will go back to the Department of Health about the importance and urgency of support for the Earlybird project.

Peter Robinson: I should like to touch on one subject in the period left before we rise for the summer recess: the way in which the Government recognise the gallantry, service and devotion of those who have served in Her Majesty's forcesin particular in regiments that have been stood down. I want to touch on the Ulster Defence Regiment, which grew into the Royal Irish Regiment, the home service battalions of which were stood down in recent days.
	First, I should say that I believe that the Government proposed a sensible package for the men who had been in the RIR, which was welcomed by many, although some people who served in the regiment ended up less well off than others and might not be as generous about the Government's role. However, by and large, it was a good package.
	I also welcome the fact that the Government have recognised the additional difficulties faced by Ministry of Defence staff in Northern Ireland, who are being made redundant. They will not be able to find a job on the high street in the way in which MOD staff can in Great Britain. At least 50 per cent. of employers will not touch them and it will probably be a much larger slice than that as soon as the employers hear about their previous employment. I welcome the increased offer that the Government have made to MOD staff. Many of them will welcome that, as well. I also welcome the sensible step that the Government took to increase the bounty, from 10,000 to 20,000, for members of the RIR who transfer to other regiments and remain as soldiers in Her Majesty's forces.
	Having welcomed all those things, may I touch on some issues that I trust the Government will take on board? The Government are considering in what way the RIR and its personnel can be recognised. I know that, to some extent, the Army likes to keep a certain amount of control over the awarding of medals and I know that the Government will at least want to recognise the role of the regiment as a regiment. However, many of us in Northern Ireland believe that the individuals who have put their lives on the line should be recognised by the Government and that there should be a medal struck specifically for those who have served in the RIR. Although I hear some rumours in the MOD that it is looking at a regiment recognition, as opposed to a soldier recognition, I trust that the Government will look again at that important issue. It might not seem much to many outside the services, but for those who have served in the most horrible and dangerous of circumstances, it is due recognition for the contribution that they have made.
	For the Ulster Defence Regiment, a matter relating to the accumulated campaign service medal continues to be a sore. The medal is available to full timers who complete 1,080 operational duties, or part timers who complete 1,000 operational duties. That would appear to make it fairly simple to determine who is entitled to the medal, but regrettably it does not work out that way. The Ministry of Defence says that, as a matter of policy, it has disposed of records that were completed manually, and it now relies on those available through IT. The problem is that, before 1984, records of operational duties were compiled manually, so the information is no longer available to the MOD.
	I have been pressing the issue for a long time, and I thought that the problem had been cracked when the MOD made it clear that it was setting up a special group that would consider any applications, and that would take evidence from senior officers and others on whether a person had completed the necessary number of duties. However, it has not worked out. Many of my constituents complain that they completed that number of duties and more, and had letters from senior officers in the regiment saying that they had done so, but were turned down for the medal. One of the champions of the campaign is my constituent, Samuel Fisher. Although he has letters from senior officers not only stating that he completed the number of operational duties required, but listing the operational duties that he performed, he is still not being given the medal. It is unacceptable to leave people who have served their country so well with that kind of gripe. I trust that the MOD will look into the issue again.
	I do not want to devalue the medal by simply making it available to anybody who applies and claims, on their honour, to have completed the duties required, but some combination of the soldier's length of time in the regiment and the available records should be used to enable the MOD to reach a conclusion. Certainly, a more generous approach could be taken; there should be an assumption in favour of the soldier, rather than an presumption against, as seems to be the case at present. I trust that the Minister will relay that to his colleagues and will look sympathetically on the case of those who have served our country well. As we come out of conflict in Northern Ireland, I trust that we will remember those who stood by us when it was at its height.

Phil Willis: It is a pleasure to make a brief contribution to this summer Adjournment debate. I wish to take this opportunity to raise just one issue that affects my constituency, but given the comments of many hon. Members it is the same issue that affects many of theirsthe crisis in health care in our constituencies.
	I raise the issue of health care in Harrogate and Knaresborough with particular sadness, because throughout my time in the House I have been at pains to point out my thanks and admiration for all those clinicians, managers and support staff who have made health care in my constituency a beacon of excellence.
	My constituency is blessed with arguably the finest and most dedicated group of general practitioners to be found anywhere in the UK. Those GPs have embraced reform, modernisation and the move to enhance the opportunities to deliver ever more services by primary care.
	We also have a general hospital, the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust, which was ranked as a three star hospital for three consecutive years before achieving compliance status as a foundation trust in 2006. It currently sees 100 per cent. of cancer patients within 14 days and treats them within 31 days of diagnosis. It also treats 100 per cent. of elective patients within 13 weeks, and it has one of the lowest rates of hospital MRSA in Britain. And it has balanced its books in every single year since 1992.
	All that has been put at risk by the Government's boom and bust policies and the arrogant tactics of the PCT, which appears more interested in pleasing its paymasters in London than patients in north Yorkshire as its officers scramble for posts in the new PCT structure. I say that with sadness, because until recently the Craven and Harrogate PCT delivered its services effectively, and it has remained in financial good health since its formation. In the space of six months, however, the local GPs are close to declaring a vote of no confidence in the chief executive of the PCT and are openly refusing to implement cuts in services that will put their patients at riskgood on them.

Phil Willis: I would like to believe that, but the problem is that there is currently no accountability within the service. Unaccountable people in unaccountable quangos have made the decisions, which affect a significant number of my constituents.
	The GPs were up in arms after the PCT issued new guidelines effectively blocking all but critical and urgent referrals. The guidelines cancelled access to treatment such as dermatology and led to the vetting of referrals through an internal administrative sieve. The proposals, which were presented without consultation with GPs, ignore GPs' ethical, professional and regulatory obligations. GPs provide the primary care bedrock to our NHS service, and it is important that we recognise their position. It is unacceptable for non-clinical staff to make judgments about GP referrals, as if GPs refer patients simply for the fun of it. Consultation is key in tackling any difficult situation in any organisation, and it is crucial in the NHS. I hope that the Deputy Leader of the House will persuade the Secretary of State for Health to make such consultation a statutory requirement, not an add-on, in future.
	The GP referral issue impacts directly on both secondary and tertiary care, which means a direct impact on the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust. Again, relationships have not simply broken down, because the two bodies are about to end up in court, where the worst case scenario is the closure of one of the country's most modern and most successful hospitals. The hospital's crime is that it treats patients too swiftly and too effectively. To deal with that, it must cut its activity by making patients wait for treatment until their conditions deteriorate, which means that staff and facilities will be under-utilised.
	More than 1 million of activity is being purchased from the private sector as part of a bizarre notion of choice. My constituents have been told that they can choose a hospital for their treatment provided that it is not their local NHS trust, which is the politics of the madhouse. Last year, the Harrogate trust was actively encouraged to take on more work, treat more patients and decrease waiting times and lists, all of which was in line with the Government policy of payment by results. The trust delivered the results: 3 million worth of extra patients in record time with top quality results, but the PCT has refused to pay up. The patients have been treated and the hospital has incurred the costs. At no time did the PCT discourage the activity, but it now claims that it does not have to pay and that the hospital should absorb the costs in the coming year. No business in the land could operate in that way, let alone one with a hugely expensive infrastructure. My local hospital cannot survive having its base budget slashed while being told to maintain current levels of activity. The Government must intervene in this dispute, if only to clarify their own policy. Foundation trusts are paid by activity or they are cash limited with their activity determined by an outside non-clinical bodyone cannot have it both ways. They cannot be expected to ride two horses at the same time. The Secretary of State must accept that the 3 million deficit that my trust faces should be managed over an equivalent number of years and that from now on all activity commissioned must be paid for by PCTs.
	The future of health care in Harrogate hangs by a thread as we speak. If the current policies of the PCT go unchallengedI suspect that a new chief executive and a new board will be required to win back the confidence of the cliniciansthen Harrogate could see its hospital closed and its GPs become ever more disillusioned. I sincerely hope that the Minister's right hon. Friend, the Health Secretary, is able to step in before it is too late.

David Tredinnick: I am grateful to have been called to speak in this very busy debate. I, too, wish to refer to the serious crisis taking place in Lebanon. Like many other Members, I am deeply concerned about what is happening there. I see it as a tragedy of errorsa war that did not have to take place and should not have begun. The Government's policy on the issue is quite extraordinary and needs to be examined. I should like to draw on my experiences in Northern Ireland, where, a long time ago, I was responsible for building part of the peace line in Belfast. I had the experience of driving the pikes into the ground at that time.
	The policy of the Israeli Government is absolutely catastrophic. It was the greatest error imaginable to move back into Lebanon, and the UK Government policy on this is totally misguided. What Israel's policy has achieved for Israel is desperate: its northern cities are being attacked at a time of holiday, families are being killed, and the country is less secure than ever. It is more threatened than it has been for many years, and it is now faced with rockets with a greater range than ever before.
	When I heard about the capture of the Israeli soldiers I thought, What a great opportunity for Israel to show statesmanship. What an opportunity for them to step back and give a measured response. That was obviously what was needed. Hezbollah was clearly not being controlled by the Lebanese Government. From my experience in Northern Ireland, I question whether the Hezbollah people who took those soldiers were really controlled by Hezbollah. This looked like the work of a splinter group, rather than the main Hezbollah.
	The Israelis' absolute refusal to have any discussions on the issue was what started this war. We are told that Hezbollah started the war, but it did not. What started it was the fact that there was no negotiation. Historically, in 1979, 1985, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2004, Israel always negotiated over the release of prisoners. The reason why Hezbollah did this was not because it was being pushed by Iran but because it has thousands of prisoners in Israeli jailsmen, women and children. That is what caused this resistance movement to gain energy and to take this desperate course of action. Now, Israel is faced with this attack. I do not condone or support it; I think that it is a terrible mistake.
	The response of the international community has been even worse. Who can remember Henry Kissinger flying between cities as fast as he could to try to resolve past crises? What do we have here? We have a G8 that is incapable of coming up with a formula. We have an American Government who have given the Israelis a free hand to smash up Lebanon under the pretext that that is necessary to defeat Hezbollah. We have a British Government whoI say this really of the Foreign Secretaryappear to parrot American policy. When a commentator on the Radio 4 Today programme asked the Foreign Secretary about Iraq in connection with Lebanon, she appeared to think that there was no connection. She is completely out of touch.
	We now have the ludicrous situation in which the demand made by the Israelis for the implementation of UN resolution 1559 calling for the Lebanese Government to control and disarm Hezbollahwhich has become less likely than everis now a policy. Against that background, other UN resolutions242 and 338, calling for the withdrawal of Israelis from territories occupiedare completely ignored, as if they had never existed. What folly it is to have that policy now. Britain has no troops in Israel but thousands across Arabia, had a terrorist attack in London last year, and has 1.6 million Muslims, and yet we have managed to put most of our friends in Arabia off-side by not coming out strongly against the destruction of civilian infrastructure, affecting Arabs, Christians and all those in the emerging democracy of Lebanon.
	What folly it is, too, to take no notice of the fact that Hamas had won elections in Palestine. We support democracies when it is convenientthat is the American waybut what happens when the wrong people are in charge? Has anyone remembered that Hezbollah runs schools, as the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) said, and has been elected to the Beirut Parliament?
	Why are we in such a mess? I have referred to the Foreign Secretary, but let me talk for a while about the Prime Minister's special envoy to the middle east, the noble Lord Levy. He has not visited a single Arab countryI have looked it upbut he has made copious visits to Israel, of which he is clearly a strong supporter, with a business and relations there. He is supposed to be impartial. Why did the Prime Minister not choose someone who is an old Arab hand and really knows his way around the middle east? If we go to the Spinwatch website, we find that apparently, when the noble Lord took on his other role to raise large sums of money for the Labour party, it was on the
	tacit understanding that Labour would never again, while Blair was leader, be anti-Israel.
	I have done a rough check on Library figures, and about a quarter to a third of all the money raised in loans for the Labour party since the noble Lord has been involved has come from pro-Israeli supporters. When we have thousands of our troops in Arab countries, is it possible that there is a link between the Labour party being short of money and British foreign policy in support of the Israeli position? Is it possible that the Government are conveniently ignoring our interests in the wider Arab world because of Labour's domestic difficulties? I hope that someone will investigate this important matter.
	I fear for our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Government have done them a great disservice by not coming out strongly against the attacks on Arab civilian installations. It makes their task much more difficult. It is absolutely essential, however, that we take a more sympathetic view, and that we listen more to our British Muslims and try to give them comfort by not simply going along with an American policy that is clearly at variance with that which most people in the world believe to be sensible.

Richard Younger-Ross: I shall try to be fairly brief, Madam Deputy Speaker.
	There are a number of issues that I think the House should debate fully before the recess. One, the middle east, has already been touched on. I ask the Deputy Leader of the House to reassure us that Parliament will be recalled during the recess if the situation in Lebanon deteriorates, but also if the situation in Iraq deteriorates and the country ends up in full civil war, and also if our relationship with Iran deteriorates. Those are all serious matters that need to be dealt with in the House.
	We now have a two and a half month period in which we cannot hold the Government to account. That period was shorter in the past, because we sat in September. That sitting should be reinstated so that we do not go quite so long. We still have time off during the rest of the year, but we no longer make up for it in September, so the sooner we reinstate the September sitting, the better.
	To return to the current crisis in Lebanon, I have heard reports that the Israelis are using a new type of shell, the shrapnel from which is not detectable on X-ray. That makes it very difficult for the doctors who are treating the injured to remove the offending particles from the body. I hope that the Government will look further into that matter and find out whether those reports are true. I trust that the Minister will pass that on.
	Domestic matters are important to my constituents and none less than water charges. South West Water has its annual general meeting this Thursday and MPs and councillors will be protesting at that meeting about the high level of water charges in the south-westthe highest in the country. As has been put on record before, 3 per cent. of the population is still paying for cleaning up 30 per cent. of the country's beaches.
	The high water charges are not just the responsibility of South West Water. They flow from the mechanisms of privatisation, whereby there is no method for spreading infrastructure costs across the country, so they have to be borne by the individual water companies. The costs in the south-west are disproportionate. With above-inflation council tax rises as well as excessive water charges, pensioner households in the south-west are spending between a fifth and a quarter of their income on those costs alone. That, quite frankly, is unacceptable.
	I want to make just two further brief points. First, affordable housing is a real problem in the south-west. We need a proper debate about when the Government are going to tackle the problem of affordable housing in Devon. In Teignbridge, the cost of housing as a percentage of income is higher than anywhere in Surrey: the Government will provide assistance for emergency and other workers in Surry, but no such aid or assistance comes to Devon or to my constituency.
	Lastly, I want to say a few words about planning. My background is in architecture and over many years I have watched towns being blighted by poor planning decisions. I am talking about coming into a town and having to see the back end of a supermarket because the planners were not prepared to opt for a more attractive front. The Government are able to help in respect of Government and local government buildings, and I urge them to improve the planning quality of some of their buildings.
	To provide one example, a fire station was built in Teignmouth in a prime location for tourists entering the town. It is a beautiful spot. There is nothing particularly wrong with the design of the fire station; it is competent enough, but being in such a prime location, it should have been a lot better. When I argued that the fire authority should provide a better design, it said that there was no time or money to do so. That was nonsense and the problem is that the station will be there for years to come.

David Lidington: Yesterday, the Healthcare Commission published the results of its investigation into outbreaks of clostridium difficile in Stoke Mandeville hospital. That report describes the most appalling human tragedy. There were more than 300 cases of people taken ill between 2003 and 2005 and more than 30 people have died either definitely or probably as a result of that infection.
	Stoke Mandeville is the local hospital for the great majority of my constituents and it is the biggest employer in my constituency. To make my personal interest clear, it is the hospital at which all four of my children were born and on which my family relies for our own medical care.
	The Healthcare Commission's report described in pungent terms serious failings and misjudgments by the local management team. It is important that those lessons be clearly learned and that procedures are followed in the future to avoid that shocking sequence of events happening again. However, the commission's report also includes recommendations that clearly require a response from Ministers.
	On page after page of the report, the commission describes occasions on which the wish of the infection control staff at Stoke Mandeville hospital to ensure that the control of infection and the isolation of patients was given priority over other things came up against the insistence of the hospital management that Government targets on case management, waiting times and finance had to be met first; and against a sincere, strongly held belief on the part of senior hospital management, which I know from my constituency experience is by no means confined to Stoke Mandeville, that failure to deliver on those Government targets would put people's jobs at risk and lead to serious financial penalties being imposed on the hospital.
	In the time available, I am unable to list as many examples, drawn from yesterday's report, as I would wish. I will confine myself to one example. On page 89 of the report, the commission states:
	At Stoke Mandeville Hospital, the increased throughput of patients needed to meet performance targets resulted in patients being moved, difficulties in isolating patients with infection and high occupancy of beds.
	It continued:
	The lack of suitable isolation facilities at Stoke Mandeville Hospital was exacerbated by changes to wards such as 'ring-fencing' surgical beds in order to deliver Government's targets... Higher occupancy of beds meant that there was less time for thorough cleaning.
	I have visited the hospital, both as the Member of Parliament and in a private capacity as a visitor, on many occasions over the past 14 years. I have full confidence in the professionalism and dedication of its staff, from cleaners, nurses and doctors to the management. I believe that its staff can learn the lessons of the report and reassure my constituents that they can expect high-quality care when they are treated there, but I also believe that what those staff want from the Government is less insistence on inflexible targets imposed from the centre and much greater trust in the professionalism and skill of the staff at the front line to deliver the care that they have devoted their working lives to providing.

Anne Milton: I realise that time is short, but I should like to refer to three issues in my constituency, one of which has been mentioned already by the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster), who is no longer in his seat, and it is Creating an NHS fit for the futurea consultation document released by the strategic health authority in my constituency. I am slightly staggered that anyone could possibly believe that that document is entirely the responsibility and in the ownership of the SHA.
	In my view, that document has been produced in response to pressure from the Government to make substantial savings. Without doubt, the document will put the Royal Surrey county hospital in Guildford at serious risk. There is no doubt that services will be reduced. There are rumours about maternity services and paediatrics, and reductions in the provision of accident and emergency services are also on the cards. What is distressing to my constituents is that there is no doubt that their health will be put at risk. At a recent public meeting that I and my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) organised, it was clear from the concerns of the clinicians, the GPs and other doctors that lives will be on the line if there is any downgrading of accident and emergency care.
	Another point about accident and emergency departments that is sadly often overlooked is that when they are downgraded, it is often downgrading by stealth. When accident and emergency departments shut, the services that sit behind them fall as well, like a line of dominoes: research opportunities fall, as is much of the acute work taken on by the hospital, and that hospital's ability to attract staff is greatly diminished.
	Another issue that I want to raise is the funding formula. Many references have been made to the loss of hospital services in various constituencies, but I wish to draw attention to the funding formula that we are all subjected to in order to get our NHS budgets. It is commonly believed by the Government that a lot of the financial problems are due to poor management. However, I draw the Government's attention to work done in Suffolk, and in Plymouth by Professor Asthana, which suggests precisely the opposite, which is that constituencies such as mine, which are essentially rural and slightly more affluent than most, are being chronically underfundedso my constituents' health is not worth as much as the health of those in constituencies such as the Prime Minister's.
	Let me briefly mention another issue which is of huge concern to many of my constituents in places such as Hurtemore, Eashing and Shackleford, as well as to a wider population: the inclusion of Eashing farm in a draft minerals plan. Let me explain what is sad about such issues: because this site has been included in a draft minerals plan, the residents there will be facing blight for the best part of two or three years, while waiting for a decision finally to be made. The area I have mentioned is close to a site of special scientific interest, and there will be increasing amounts of traffic and a significant impact on the local hydrology and the flow of spring water. There will also of course be noise and vibration from the extraction and associated activity; and then at the end, what will be put in the huge whole that remains? That draws attention to a problem that many of my constituents face: they feel completely powerless to have any impact on the decision making. They are faced with this tremendous blight on their homes, and they can do nothing about it.
	In my constituency, people's faith in consultation is running very thin. We have recently had decisions to close community hospitals. Decisions have been made to close the day hospital at Cranleigh, beds at Cranleigh, and the rehabilitation centre at Milford; 94 per cent. of people said that they did not want that option to go ahead, butlo and beholdthat is the option that goes ahead.
	As ever, planning issues generate a huge number of concerns, which I am sure that many of my hon. Friends share. Such issues include mobile phone masts, town cramming and overdevelopment of back gardens. Another issue that has not been stressed as often as some others is the cumulative effect of planning applications. There are areas to the north of Guildford where the roads are actually quite narrow and each year, bit by bit, there is planning creep; more and more applications come in, and ever more of them are accepted. There is an exponential growth in that area, without the infrastructure to cope. We now have a situation in which motorists are mounting the pavements and are putting children walking to school at risk. That draws attention to the fact that local people want to have their say on planning applications. They make good decisions when given the opportunity to do so. The problem is that current planning legislation does not allow local residents to have their say.

Bob Spink: Under previous Governments no one in clinical need would be refused treatment by the NHS. But the new NHS denies treatments to sufferers from Alzheimer's disease, and it denies anti-TNF treatments to those suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and ankylosing spondylitis. This rationed NHS is becoming less humane.
	Depriving brain tumour patients of drugs that can prolong their lives condemns people to a premature death. I declare an interest as my son is a neurosurgeon. That we have come so far from an NHS based on clinical judgment is evidenced by the 36 neuro-oncologists who wrote to the Secretary of State for Health to ask that two treatmentstemozolomide and carmustine implantsbe made available to all brain tumour patients who need them.
	It may be time to ensure that the methodologies of the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence are based on scientific evidence and that NICE takes into account the wider economic, societal and human costs or benefits when making its decisions. Why do other countries achieve palpably better outcomes on health and associated matters? For instance, buphenorphine stops morphine being taken up by the cell receptors and helps addicts come off drugs. It is used in France, where they achieve a retention rate of 88 per cent., with only a 7 per cent. delinquent rate on follow-up. But in the UK, only 28 per cent. of drug treatment and testing orders are completed satisfactorily and reconviction rates are 80 per cent., opposite figures to those achieved in France. Why are survival rates in the UK for brain cancers so low, compared with other parts of Europe? How has Australia managed to identify 80 per cent. of its chronic hepatitis C cases, compared with only 23 per cent. in the UK? I am sure that many excellent colleagues from all sides of the House will join me in pushing the Government to review their policies on NICE.
	In addition, I ask the Government to remove the uncertainty over Remploy, which is causing great concern. Although I understand that the Southend branch that employs so many of my constituents is not at risk, I hope that Ministers will make a statementover the recess, if necessaryso that the minds of vulnerable people can be put at rest.
	We must welcome the trilateral talks on Gibraltar and its constitutional reform, to which Gibraltar's First Minister Peter Caruana has adopted a very positive approach. In addition, we must praise and thank Cyprus for its contribution to the international effort on the evacuation of people from Lebanon. The UK must support both communities in Cyprus in the work to get a just settlement through the UN process agreed by Tassos Papadopoulos and Mehmet Ali Talat. That process should begin immediately and involve bi-communal discussions of all the issues. The UK must support and help Turkey in every way in its bid to join the EU, as it is probable that that will be one of the catalysts to the achievement of a solution to the Cyprus problem.
	Finally, I always hoped that the UK would be able to retain its sovereignty in the EU and bring about root-and-branch reform from within, but I now accept that Sir Teddy Taylor was right all along and that I was wrong. Our rebate and national sovereignty are under threat, as waste and corruption increase in the EU as a result of the increasing failure of accounts and controls.
	Nowadays, two thirds of our laws are made in Europe and not in this Parliament, but there is no proper scrutiny or democratic accountability. Therefore, I now accept that the bestthe onlyway forward for the UK is to withdraw from the EU. That would enable us to protect our borders better, and to generate more jobs and wealth. We would then be able to take better care of our citizens, especially those vulnerable people who, like the Remploy employees, are deeply worried about their jobs.

John Barrett: I, too, shall be brief. I want to raise several matters that affect my constituents, whose concern for people elsewhere in the world I find very heartening.
	The city of Edinburgh is my home city, and that of the Deputy Leader of the House. It is hard to believe that a year has passed since the Make Poverty History marches took place there. Hopes were high and promises were made, but since then the World Trade Organisation talks have collapsed, with trade-distorting subsidies by the EU and US remaining as a barrier to helping poor countries trade their way out of poverty.
	A number of constituents have contacted me about the situation in Lebanon after watching the daily television images of the conflict there. The images have been gruesome enough, but they are merely a sanitised version of what is really happening on the ground. Other hon. Members have spoken about their concerns in this debate, but my greatest fear is that Israel's policy in respect of Lebanon is the single biggest threat to its own future as a state. It cannot carry on as it has, and the Governments of the UK and the US should change their approach and put pressure on Israel. The Prime Minister says that he has a special relationship with the US President: if so, he must use it to that end.
	The hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) made an excellent speech, and I disagree with very little of what she said. If time permits, however, I too intend to mention the question of nuclear power.
	Various hon. Members this afternoon have spoken about access to water, which is an important matter for many countries in the developing world. I am fortunate enough to be a member of the Select Committee on International Development, and we will look at the matter later in the year. We are in the middle of a long, hot summer and think that we are suffering, but I am pleased to say that many people are aware of the serious problems that arise further afield.
	I am pleased that the Government have taken action on the Child Support Agency. I was elected five years ago, and hardly a week has gone by without constituents turning up to my advice surgery with serious complaints about the CSA. The shake-up will be of little comfort to their families if it is only a fanfare of Government spin and the new system does not adequately pursue the errant fathers or ex-partners who do not pay the money due to mothers and to their children.
	Throughout the past year, with the support of a number of local community groups in my constituency, I have raised their problems in organising local events. They are being hampered by their battle against the red tape that stifles too many of their good efforts. I should like to go into more detail, but unfortunately time is against me.
	We are 20 years from the Chernobyl disaster, and I want to record my opposition to a new generation of nuclear power stations and to reinforce the importance of investing in energy efficiency, microgeneration and renewable energy. There are many more things I could say, but time is against the House and I want to give other Members the opportunity to contribute.

Theresa May: We must have had a record number of speakers and a record number of issues raised in a summer recess Adjournment debate. I start by referring to the comments made by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) about our former colleague, the late Kevin Hughes. He was indeed a decent and hard-working Member of the House, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.
	It is not surprising that a large number of speeches were about the health service. The debate was kicked off by the right hon. Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), who bemoaned the cut in funding for hospital redevelopment in his constituency, and he particularly mentioned Leicester general hospital, which will not get the money that it was expecting. That theme was continued by a number of hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), who referred to the lack of provision and the rationing of treatment, particularly for Alzheimer's and rheumatoid arthritis. As a patron of the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society, I share his concerns on that point.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) mentioned the uncertain future of community hospitals, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) echoed what he said, pointing out that many community hospitals have provided excellent care but face an uncertain future. That is a problem not just in Cumbria or Kent, but across the country, as many community hospitals are under threat. Although the Government have offered capital funding for community hospitals, the issue is not capital but revenue. As Jim Hacker found out, there is not much point in building a new hospital if one cannot treat the patients. The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) echoed some of those concerns in his references to boom and bust in the health service.
	Concerns about the health service were shared by the hon. Member for Colchester (Bob Russell)at least I think he was talking about the health service in that amazing display of fast talking. From what I gathered, in his area, too, there is a hospital development that is now not being funded. My hon. Friend the Member for Guildford (Anne Milton) talked about the Government's need to accept the impact of their policies at grass-roots level. My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) mentioned the specific problems of oxygen supplylike many other hon. Members, I have received complaints from constituents about that, as many people have been left in considerable difficulties as a result of the way in which the Government put out that particular contract.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Lidington) spoke in measured terms about the report published yesterday on the outbreak of a deadly infection in Stoke Mandeville, which led to 30 deaths. He also drew attention to the need for clinical decisions to take priority over Government targets, and I understand that that theme runs through the report.
	There was a note of praise for the health servicemy hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight (Mr. Turner) was grateful to the Government for listening to local people in relation to the arrangements for the Isle of Wight primary care trust, but he pointed outas he has done assiduously in a number of debates, and in other ways in the Housethe problem of the lack of access to dentists for many of his constituents. That problem is echoed in many constituencies across the country.
	The most amazing contribution on the health service was made by the hon. Member for Hastings and Rye (Michael Jabez Foster), who seemed to say that everything was fine and the problem was just the media, despite the fact that he has a petition with 20,000 signatures complaining about potential cuts in health services in his constituency. That suggests that there are problems there, rather than simply being raised by the media. Jobs are being cut; we are not simply talking about headlines. He asked, in so many words, where all the money has gone. He said that many of his constituents felt that lots of money had gone into the health serviceindeed it hasbut in many areas the money is not being spent on improving care. In many areas hospitals are under threat of loss of services or, indeed, closure. What I thought was amazing about the contribution was that the hon. Gentleman ignored the fact that many of the cuts are a direct result of Government policy. It is the constant structural change, bureaucracy and targets that are wasting so much money and taking it away from where it should be spent, on improving patient care.
	It is not surprising that many hon. Members referred to the middle east. My hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick) spoke with passion about his view of the response of the international community. The hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) who, sadly, contributed to a recess Adjournment debate and is not present at the end of it, focused on the plight of civilians who bear the brunt of hostile action. The hon. Member for Teignbridge (Richard Younger-Ross) spoke about the crisis, as did the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock), who was concerned at the Government's positionan issue raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Isle of Wight as well. Many of us were concerned at the Prime Minister's reported stance in discussions with the US President at the G8 summit, where he appeared to be willing to follow in the wake of the United States.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Tiverton and Honiton made a crucial point when she spoke of our need to provide proper resources for our troops. We send men and women out to fight on our behalf. It is only right that we should provide them with the resources necessary to do the job.
	Development issues, particularly garden grabbing, were highlighted by the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) and by my hon. Friends the Members for Beckenham (Mrs. Lait) and for Guildford. The hon. Member for Teignbridge also mentioned planning design standards and affordable housing, especially as it affects certain rural areas.
	Economic issues were discussed by a number of hon. Members. We had an interesting history lesson from the hon. Member for Hartlepool (Mr. Wright) on the past development of the city. He promoted Hartlepool as a tourist venue, and I wish him all the very best in encouraging greater numbers of tourists to visit it. I congratulate those who worked to ensure that Hartlepool will be the venue for the tall ships in the future.
	My right hon. Friend the Member for Penrith and The Border made his customary impassioned plea for the economy of Cumbria, with particular reference to the plight of dairy farmers, and the interests of his constituents and others in Cumbria in relation to the continuation of nuclear power plant in Cumbria and the value of Sellafield to the economy.
	The hon. Member for North Swindon who, I am afraid, also contributed to a recess Adjournment debate and is not in his place at the end of the debate, addressed an aspect of the economythe need to ensure that we apply science to improve our competitiveness. His point about the low numbers taking maths post-16 was well made.
	Another spirited performance came from my hon. Friend the Member for Ribble Valley (Mr. Evans), who promoted the interests of his constituents in relation to the A59, and also promoted the future of the joint strike fighter aircraft.
	The hon. Member for Weaver Vale raised four separate matters in his contribution. He spoke about the impact on the health of those living where buildings have been built on landfill sites, which is a concern in my constituency where development is proposed on landfill sites. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the problems of wheel clamping which, sadly, have not gone away as a result of the Government's Act. As he noted, there is a still a lack of information for people about their own position. He also referred to the lack of access to the court register, a valid point which I hope the Deputy Leader of the House will take up. The hon. Member for North Swindon has come into the Chamber. I therefore apologise for my previous remark. Sadly, he missed what I said about him in other respects, but it is good of him to turn up eventually. The hon. Member for Weaver Vale also spoke about the hopes of the Daresbury research centre for the future work there. I know the impact that the decision about the location of the diamond synchrotron in Oxfordshire had on his constituency, so I wish him the best in his campaign.
	The hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) spoke with passion about her constituent caught up in the confusion of our citizenship laws, and also raised the need for funding for research on aspects of obesity. The hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) spoke about the changes that have taken place in regiments in Northern Ireland, and rightly paid tribute to the commitment and gallantry with which members of those regiments serve in our armed forces. The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam mentioned temporary event notices. We raised the issue with the Government on many occasions last year. They are the worst of all worlds. Not enough TENs are issued for most village halls, churches and schools to be able to do what they want to do, yet a loophole enables pubs to get round the conditions.
	The hon. Member for Edinburgh, West (John Barrett) was right to raise the issue of the collapse of the world trade talks, which should be of concern to us all, particularly those campaigning for the interests of developing countries, and the poor in those countries. He also referred to the Government's action on the CSA. Sadly, it is rather less action than the Government were spinning in their headlines yesterday, and I fear that many families will be disappointed.
	My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) gave his usual thoughtful contribution, highlighting an issue that will be of real concern in futureendowment shortages. He also spoke, as he has done on other occasions, about the need for parents to have the right to choose where their children with special needs should be educated. I was interested in his index of family cohesion. My hon. Friend the Member for Croydon, Central (Mr. Pelling) spoke up for fair deal for Croydon.
	Throughout, a wide range of concerns have been raised; more than I have ever heard raised in a recess Adjournment debate before. I hope that the Government will listen seriously to the points and recognise the common thread that has run through so many of the contributions. The Government are wasting so much of our taxpayers' money and people sadly feel powerless as the Government ignore local views and fail to understand the impact that is caused by their policies.
	Madam Deputy Speaker, I wish you and all right hon. and hon. Members a very happy summer recess.

Nigel Griffiths: I have had the pleasure of listening to all 27 contributions in the debate and I shall respond to as many as I can, note the comments that I do not respond to on the Floor of the House, and draw them, where appropriate, to the responsible Minister's attention.
	I am grateful to my right hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz) for raising the hospital question and highlighting the 500 million of additional expenditure that is going in, and I am sure that his neighbour and colleague, the Secretary of State for Health, will be aware of the issues that he has raised. In respect of his constituent whose conviction was quashed, I hope that he is seeking a meeting with the Minister. I understand that he has already raised the matter. I shall certainly make inquiries about the outcome of that. In respect of the compensation to a UK citizen who has business interests in the Lebanon, again I will ensure that his concerns are noted.
	There were widespread concerns throughout the House about what is happening in Lebanon. The Foreign Secretary and the Minister for the Middle East were at the Dispatch Box earlier today and explained our concerns unequivocally. The route that Israel has embarked on is folly in failing to target properly those Hezbollah bases, missiles and training camps, and by causing unnecessary suffering to civilians, including children, and also, as the Minister said earlier, unnecessary damage to the infrastructure that does not appear to be connected to the terrorist activities. I do not believe that Israel has done itself a good service in its reaction. Indeed, it has probably lost friends. Like all hon. Members, I unreservedly condemn Hezbollah. Its actions have been evil. To send off missiles into civilian populations indiscriminately by way of retaliation beggars belief, is completely unjustifiable and is provoking Israel beyond endurance.
	The hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam (Mr. Burstow) raised a number of issues, including the temporary event notices locally. I and the Government expect the local authorities responsible for the licensing to use their powers to the maximum to ensure that where the lives of local residents are being disrupted, they take action, whether through noise abatement enforcement or other powers. There are powers to close premises where temporary events are taking place and where disorder and public nuisance issues arise.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Weaver Vale (Mr. Hall) mentioned an issue that affects his constituents and othersthe possible previous contamination of sites and the right of people to make what he called an informed choice. I shall certainly ensure that his message is reinforced with my ministerial colleagues. He mentioned a number of other important issues, including the way in which we treat the convictions of people who are mentally ill. Indeed, a Bill is being prepared at the moment, and I hope that it reassures the public on that issue.
	With great diligence, the right hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (David Maclean) always raises the problems of rural farmers and of dairy farmers in particular. He mentioned a fact that may surprise hon. MembersCumbria is the slowest growing part of an economy in the EUand my hon. Friends would like to see the evidence to which he referred. He called for massive intervention and wants assisted area designation. I am not sure whether assisted area designation will be granted, but no one will put the case more forcefully than him. He also voiced his strong support for nuclear power and Sellafield and discussed the issue of community hospitals. While commending the Government on the 750 million allocated to community hospitals, like many hon. Members he voiced concerns about the provision of hospitals locally.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Joan Ruddock) spoke for many of us in her views on the present conflict in the middle east. She condemned the neo-cons, and I have some sympathy with that. I thought it disgraceful that Pat Buchanan could call for the assassination of an elected president in south America. He is not the sort of person who should be granted the right to come to Britain until he completely rejects such dreadful views. She also discussed nuclear power and Trident, both of which will be subject to intense debates, and votes, in this Chamber.
	The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Angela Browning) spoke about the problems with public service contracts. She mentioned the issue of oxygen cylinders, of which I am aware. There are a number of contracts, and my ministerial colleagues in the Department of Health are actively ensuring that officials monitor all contracts to ensure that the sort of problems raised by her and by another hon. Member are tackled, so that the provision reaches the best of the providers and not providers that are less than adequate for meeting the needs of her constituents and others. She mentioned the important issue of equipment for the armed forces, and I am sure that all Ministry of Defence Ministers monitor that matter with great care.
	On the same subject, the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. Robinson) mentioned the honourable role played by former members of the armed forces in policing, which, as he said, should be recognised. I understand that my ministerial colleagues are examining that matter in response to his representations and others.
	My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Alison Seabeck) highlighted a key problem involving her constituent and I shall ensure that the matter is drawn to the attention of colleagues, because it seems most unfair.
	The hon. Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis) praised his health authority and highlighted some problems. I am aware of many of the issues because I have been studying a few of the reports in the past week, such as, Learning the lessons from financial failures in the NHS, which highlights the 25 trusts that are responsible for 70 per cent. of the overspend. Those trusts show a catalogue of mismanagement and poor financial control.
	The right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) mentioned his local problems. I refer him to a fairly damning report by PricewaterhouseCoopers on his own trust, which highlighted the mismanagement and problems there. It is important that all Members read those reports and find out, if their health trusts are listed there, what they should be doing to address the problems
	 It being Seven o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Kevan Jones: I want to start by saying how pleased I am to have secured this Adjournment debate to raise the plight of the Bevin Boys. Before I turn to the main part of my speech, I should like to pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks), who has campaigned assiduously on this issue since he entered the House. I should also like to congratulate the  Sunday Express on its campaign on behalf of the Bevin Boys, the forgotten heroes of the second world war.
	In 1943, this country faced a crisis in coal production that put our ability to win the second world war in jeopardy. More than 36,000 miners had left the mines to fight for their country, and our coal reserves had fallen so low by the end of the year that we were down to less than three weeks' supply. The Government made pleas to volunteers to enlist for mine work, but, unfortunately, they raised very few recruits. When the shortage reached a crisis in December 1943, the then Minister for Labour and National Service, Ernest Bevin, decided that a certain percentage of draftees would be directed into the pits to make up the manpower shortage. Speaking at a conscription meeting in 1943, he said:
	We need 720,000 men continuously employed in this industry. This is where you boys come in.
	That is how the term Bevin Boys was born.
	Chosen at random from among the conscripts, nearly 48,000 Bevin Boys were drafted into the pits in the United Kingdom, and, after 1943, 10 per cent. of all conscripts between the ages of 18 and 25 were picked for service in Britain's coal mines. To make the process random, one of Bevin's secretaries would pull random numbers from a hat. All the men whose draft numbers ended in those digits would be sent to the coal mines, with the exception of those who were in highly skilled occupations.
	This random process resulted in people being picked from a whole array of professions, from desk jobs to manual work. Among the Bevin Boys who subsequently became famous were Jimmy Savile and Eric Morecambe. While I was researching the subject today, my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Mr. Campbell) told me that his father, Albert Campbell, had been a Bevin boy. He is still alive and living in Consett, and I would like to pay tribute to his efforts on behalf of his country during the second world war as a Bevin boy.
	Those young men were sent into many of the pits across the United Kingdom. In Chester-le-Street, in my constituency, a famous Bevin boy was Jock Purdon. Jock married and stayed in Chester-le-Street after the war, and worked in the pits digging coal in 3 ft seams with water up to his knees. His experiences in the mines shaped his poems and songs, and led to his being known as the miners' poet. His famous Bevin Boys Lament was put together in the Plough public house next to Pelaw pit in the 1940s.
	Before working in the pits, the Bevin Boys would be given six weeks' training. In some cases, however, there is documentation showing that that training period was cut down to six days. It was physically hard work with long shifts and dangerous conditions. Bevin Boys did not wear any uniforms or badges but the oldest clothes that they could find. All that they were given were helmets, steel toecap boots and accommodation that came to be known as Bevin huts. Being of military age and without uniform caused many Bevin Boys to be stopped by the police and questioned about avoiding the call-up. They were also loathed in many areas by service personnel who thought that they were conscientious objectorsa misconception that, alas, continues today.
	It must be emphasised that these young men were conscriptsnone was a volunteerand were made to work in the pits of the UK, just as their friends were conscripted into the Army, Navy and Air Force. Their pre-conscription employment was not protected, and those injured were not eligible for pensions as they were considered civilians. They did not get travel warrants to travel home, nor did they use the NAAFI at railway stations or any other comforts open to servicemen. More importantly, many of them continued working in the pits right up until 1948, long after many of their compatriots who had been in the armed forces had been demobilised. Clearly, this is an issue for the Ministry of Defence, not the Department of Trade and Industry, as these men were conscripts, and would not have worked in the mines unless the Government of the time had conscripted them to do so.
	It is nearly 60 years since the Bevin Boys were demobilised, and those conscripted to work in the pits are now old men. There is little that we can to do to right the wrongs that occurred during and immediately after the war. I hope, however, that we can agree on three points: first, that these men were treated badly during and after their service; secondly, that they carried out a vital role in the fight against fascism and made a vital contribution to securing the freedoms that we take for granted today; and, thirdly, that their efforts on behalf of the nation should be recognised.
	This Government have an excellent record in honouring service veterans. We have had veterans day and veterans badges, which have been warmly welcomed up and down the country. Last month, I attended an excellent veterans day event in Chester-le-Street in my constituency, and saw the pride with which many of the veterans present received their badges. It is sad that the Bevin Boys have been left out, and I hope that the Government can put that right.
	I know that Ministers, especially those at the Ministry of Defence, do not necessarily like to make decisions that have no precedent or that may be seen to set unhelpful new precedents. I therefore have news for the Minister. He recently launched the merchant seafarers badge of honourthe veterans badge for those who served in the merchant navy at any time up to 31 December 1959. I hope that a similar badge can be presented to the Bevin Boys.
	When Ernest Bevin made his famous speech in 1943, in which he said,
	that is where you boys come in,
	he also said:
	Our fighting men will not be able to achieve their purpose unless we get an adequate supply of coal.
	We were able to secure adequate coal supplies, and our fighting men were able to achieve the purpose of defeating fascism. It is right to recognise the fight of men and women, through Remembrance Sunday, veterans day and the excellent veterans badges. It is now time to pay a similar tribute to the Bevin Boys, without whose service and sacrifice we would not have been able to defeat fascism in those dark days of the second world war.

Gordon Banks: I thank my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) for giving me an opportunity to speak. The House will know that I have raised the issue of the Bevin Boys on a number of occasions, and have been in regular contact with the both the Minister and the Prime Minister. I am grateful for their responses, although for me they do not solve the problem.
	I want to say something about the recognition that the Bevin Boys have been given so far. There was absolutely nothing until 1995, when they were honoured by a reference in speeches by John Major and by the Queen. There have been two more instances of recognition, although in my opinion they did not adequately reflect the duty that the Bevin Boys gave.
	My hon. Friend has already explained the role of the Bevin Boys, but it is important to stress that in the eyes of many, our Government have an unpaid debt to the survivors, and those who are no longer with us. I tabled early-day motion 1417 in, I believe, February this year, and I am delighted that 173 of my fellow parliamentariansalthough, unfortunately, no SNP Membershave seen fit to join me in a campaign which, as my hon. Friend said, has been supported by the  Sunday Express.
	The Ministry of Defence has an obligation and, in my opinion, a moral duty to recognise formally that it has a debt of gratitude to each Bevin Boy on behalf of us all. As we have heard, had it not been for their efforts in 1943 and onwards we might well not be having this debate tonight, and as we have heard, their role was vital to our war effort, owing to the dwindling number of miners. These conscripts fought their own battles in the mines and on the streets of Britain, andas we have heard tonightthey often faced attack and ridicule as draft dodgers because they had no uniforms to wear when off duty.
	A fair amount has been written and spoken, not least by me, about some of the more famous Bevin Boys. As we have heardagainthey include Jimmy Savile, Lord Rix and, of course, one of Britain's funniest ever comedians, Eric Morecambe. However, I want to refer to some less famous, but no less worthy, Bevin boys.
	Fraser Neil is now 80 years old. He comes from Comrie in my constituency. He first drew my attention to the injustice delivered to the Bevin Boys, and rightly described them as the forgotten conscripts. John Etty from Fleetwood is a life member of the Bevin Boys Association. He served from 1945 until 1948, and went on to play rugby league for Wakefield Trinity. Warwick Taylor, vice-president of the Bevin Boys Association and author of The Forgotten Conscripts, works relentlessly to keep the Bevin Boys' lamp burning. Mr. Pearce from Harrogate has written to me, as well as other Bevin Boys such as the Booth family from Bristol, the Kilmaster family from Hanham and the Young family from Hinckley. Those are some of the families and supporters of the Bevin Boys who understand the importance of this campaign.
	I want to quote from a poem by Ron Leach from Great Barr, a former Bevin Boy. It is entitled The 'Unsung' Bevin Boys of World War Two. Let me briefly paint the picture by reciting a small excerpt:
	Some men helped to win the war
	But never marched in lines
	A desperate Government made new laws...
	To send men down the mines.
	Into the pits these men were sent
	(Although prepared to fight!)
	A conscripted force of ten per cent.
	To work where day was night.
	From any job in any street
	To pit work they did go...
	Instead of war and marching feet
	Their 'enemy' was below.
	It is a very moving poem, and I recommend it to the Minister.
	Bevin Boys died for their country. In 1945, Winston Churchill asked the Minister of Labour
	What will become of the Bevin boys after the German war is over?
	I believe it is a travesty that 61 years later, we are still asking the same question.
	Forty-eight thousand Bevin Boys served our country, including at least one Member of this Houseperhaps more. I am happy that my campaign has received the support of many surviving Bevin Boys and families of Bevin Boys, as well as that of the Mining Association of the UK, NUM Scotland, UK Coal, Scottish Coal and the current Minister for Europe, my right hon. Friend the Member for Ashfield (Mr. Hoon), whose predecessor was a Bevin Boy.
	This is not a competition. Armed service veterans are valued and honoured, as is appropriate; I only ask for the same for the Bevin Boys. Members of the land army, including my own mother, are to be applauded for the work that they did in feeding a fighting nation, but they were not Ministry of Defence conscripts, and the Bevin Boys were. The same applies to miners who worked in the industry by choice, including my father, many uncles and my grandfather. Many of them found their way to an early grave by way of disaster or disease. At least they made their employment decisions with a modicum of choice; the Bevin Boys had no choice.
	For anyone who wishes to get a fuller grasp of issues surrounding the Bevin Boys, I recommend two books: The Forgotten Conscript by Warwick Taylor, which I see the Minister has with him tonight, and A Bevin Boy's Story by George Ralston. When the Minister has finished reading his copy of The Forgotten Conscript, he could perhaps pass it on to other Ministers and officials, as it might well influence their thinking appropriately.
	The Bevin Boys, sadly, are a dying breed. Many are in their 80s and in ill health. This is the time to act to honour their individual role in the second world war, and the need has never been more pressing. The old ones are the best, Madam Deputy Speaker, and you will recall that I mentioned earlier the fact that Jimmy Savile was a Bevin Boy. I urge the Government to do the right thing by these brave men rather than rely on Jim to fix it.

Tom Watson: I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham (Mr. Jones) on securing this debatethe last but not the least before the summer recesson the important topic of recognition for the Bevin Boys. I would like to express my gratitude to other hon. Members who have brought the matter to public attention, not least to my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (Gordon Banks), who has been a great advocate for the Bevin Boys. We all agree that although my hon. Friend has been in the House only for 18 months, he has already found a powerful voice in the Chamber, representing his constituents with great potency.
	I would also like to thank two other people who helped me prepare for this evening's debate. Rather unconventionally, I would like to thank Jeremy Williams and Group Captain Barrie Thomson from my private office. Sadly, they are leaving me at the end of the week, but they have spent many sleepless nights preparing for this and other debates. I want to put on record my appreciation for their support.
	I also pay tribute to the Bevin Boys Association, which works tirelessly to raise awareness and educate the wider public about the cause. The association has more than 1,800 members from the United Kingdom and overseas. Both my hon. Friends have already congratulated the  Sunday Express on its vigorous efforts to bring the Bevin Boys to a wider audience, and I would like to add my tribute. The fact that its readers have been so enthusiastic in supporting the campaign is greatly encouraging. It shows that the contribution of all those who strove to defeat our enemies in Europe and the far east is not forgotten. There are still people out there who want to honour our veterans and the contribution that they made in their own personal way.
	The matter was raised in a question to the Prime Minister on 15 February, and again in the well supported early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Ochil and South Perthshire earlier this year. He will know that the Prime Minister has given a personal undertaking to look into the subject. Both the Prime Minister and other ministerial colleagues are doing so.
	As my hon. Friends are well aware, the Bevin Boys played a crucial role in contributing to the ultimate allied success in the second world war. They both mentioned that coal miningessential to the war effortwas suffering from a severe shortage of manpower by 1943. In December that year, following an inadequate response to an optional scheme, Ernest Bevin, the Minister of Labour at the time, decided to select men of call-up age for the mines by conscription. The system was to some extent arbitrary: one in 10 men aged 18 to 25 were selected by means of a ballot. If the last number of their national service registration number matched one of those drawn out of a hat at the Ministry of Labour headquarters, they were destined to become conscript minersBevin Boys.
	If anyone thinks that the contribution of the Bevin Boys was any less than that of other forces, they should look at the release from the Minister of Labour dated 2 December 1943:
	I want to say that the Government would not have resorted to this scheme of compulsion had it not been for the most urgent national necessity. There is no form of service which at this stage of the war is in greater need of young active recruits. Those who are chosen for transfer to coalmining will be doing their war service in a form that is as important as any, and I am sure that they will do their best to make a success of it.
	Well, they certainly did that.
	During those bleak years of the war, the Bevin Boys worked in the unpleasant and potentially hazardous conditions of the mines to supply Britain's coalthe driving force behind much of the war effort. Without their hard work in dangerous conditions, the struggle against the enemy would have quite literally ground to a halt.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I am sure that the Minister has also aware that every year the miners gala is held in my constituency, and we always have a contingent from the Bevin Boyssadly, a dwindling contingent. I wonder whether he could give us some indication of whether we will have some good news to pass on to the Bevin Boys next year.

Tom Watson: Let us hope so. I pay tribute to the Durham miners. I have never actually been to the Durham miners' gala, which my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover will regard as a shameful thing. In fact, I have never been invited; I should go one of these days.

Roberta Blackman-Woods: I am very grateful to the Minister for giving way a second time. I have great pleasure in inviting him to attend him the Durham miners' gala next year.  [Interruption.]

Tom Watson: I have seized the moment, DennisI am not allowed to say that, am I, Madam Deputy Speaker? Anyway, all five of us Members present will have a good day out at the Durham miners' gala next year.
	I also share the desire of my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham that we celebrate and commemorate the Bevin Boys' contribution. The association has a powerful platform, with two national events this year alonein Stratford-upon-Avon and the Isle of Wightand a dozen other reunions and parades throughout the country. I asked Mr. Taylor how he would sum up the Bevin Boys in a single word and he replied, camaraderie. These remarkable individuals were thrown together 60 years ago and have remained linked by a common bond ever since.
	I can assure my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham that, as Minister with responsibility for veterans, I will take these issues into account when looking at what might be done to promote wider recognition of the Bevin Boys. I will have to do so in consultation with ministerial colleagues who have an interest in these issues, but I can say to my hon. Friends present that they have made a very compelling case for the creation of a specific badge for the Bevin Boysa case that warrants more detailed examination. I pledge tonight to give it that, perhaps over the summer break, and to get back to them when we return later in the year.
	As my hon. Friend the Member for North Durham will know, I am of an age that means that I used to write letters to Jimmy Savile, but he never wrote back to me. So although Jim never fixed it for me, perhaps, between us, we can fix it for Jim. If we do manage to create a Bevin Boys badge, perhaps we can invite him to the House of Commons and present it to him personally. I am sure that my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover would like to be at that event to share his personal views [Interruption.] What a lively evening we will have together, if Jimmy is indeed a Conservative voter.
	For many years the Bevin Boys regarded themselves as the forgotten conscripts. I hope that we can all play our part in putting the record straight.
	 Question put and agreed to.
	 Adjourned accordingly at twenty-three minutes to Eight o'clock.